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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

FICTION

VICTOR HUGO'S
LES MISERABLES

VOL. ONE WITH AN INTRO-
DUCTION BY S. R. JOHN

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SIR5PHILJP*SIDNEY

MISERABLES

A Novell

VICTOR

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VOLUME I

LONDON: PUBLISHED
byJ-M-DENT &-SONS-1S3
AND IN NEW YORK
BY E- P- DUTTONBCO

FIRST ISSUE OP THIS EDITION . 1909

REPRINTED .

1910, 1912, 1913

INTRODUCTION

" WHERE our ancestors would have seen life," says Victor
Hugo sadly in his Notes of Travel, " we see matter."

In so far as that is true, Hugo stood on the boundary
between two epochs in European thought, stretching a hand
to each and uniting in himself the chief characteristics of both.
For he saw life and matter with the clearness that is born of
love and breeds love again. He saw them, that is, not as
separate entities, but as parts one of the other — the shuttle
and warp weaving eternally the living fabric of romance.
To catch the form and colour of that magic tapestry was the
object of Hugo's art.- And because in Les Miserables, of all
his prose works, that object has been worked out with perhaps
the least intermixture of other motives, the book which follows
must always take high place among the achievements of him
whom Swinburne does not fear to describe " the greatest
writer born in the nineteenth century."

How proud a title that is, only a generation yet unborn can
justly estimate. Because one can seemingly trace to an
unusual degree the operation of the causes which gave him
his claim to it, Hugo's life-story is as fascinating as one of
his own novels.

There was in his blood, to begin with, that union of Teutonic
and Celtic strains which has so often issued in great literature.
On the one side Lorraine, and on the other Brittany, gave him
ancestry, and he was wise indeed in his choice of a birth-
place. Besanfon, where he entered the world on February 26,
1802, is the ancient Besontium, whence Caesar drove the
Sequani in 58 B.C. ; and the vine-clad temple-dotted hills which
surround its rocky isthmus have forbidden it to forget the
past. It is a town both strong and beautiful. Many of its
wide streets still bear their old Gallo-Roman names; its
squares are filled with the music of fountains; and over all,
perched upon a steep and inaccessible crag 390 feet high,
towers a citadel said to be Vauban's masterpiece. In the
mind of a boy born of such blood among such scenes the

* 2234708

viii Les Miserables

spirit of romance must soon have begun to spread its wings.
In the case of Hugo succeeding circumstances did their best
to develop it. The boy's father, General Hugo, entered tha
service of Joseph Bonaparte, king first of Italy and after-
wards of Spain, and Victor's early years were spent amid
continually changing scenes and in the tracks of armies. There
is little wonder that at twelve years of age he was already
writing verses, and that at twenty-one he had gained a wide
measure of recognition among his compatriots.

Fully to understand the intellectual environment of Hugo's
youth, however, one must have an eye to the tremendous
change which was then beginning to sweep over French
literature. Despite the excursions and alarums of the Revolu-
tion, Rousseau's leaven was at work. Madame de Stael was
still introducing to France the products of the incipient
romantic movement in Germany and England. Chateau-
briand showed that the moment had come for France likewise
to cast off the fetters of formal classicism; and Lamartine,
de Vigny, and de Laprade breathed the new life into French
poetry as did Delavigne and Alexandre Dumas into other
departments of literature. With his tragedy Cromwell, pub-
lished in 1827, Hugo embarked upon the full tide of the
romantic movement. " He applied his doctrine," says Pro-
fessor Roget, " in a series of dramas, to one of which, Hernani,
the romanticists nailed their colours and compelled the public
to bow. From 1830 to 1885 Victor Hugo was in all kinds
of literature, at first an initiator, then a revered and victorious
chief, and during his old age an idolised master."

It is to the second of these three periods that Les Miserables
belongs. As will be seen from the list of his works appended
to this introduction, Hugo's genius was in the rich season of
its full fruition when, in 1852, he purchased the delightful
estate in Guernsey known as Hauteville House. Les Chati-
ments — " certainly the greatest achievement in the fusion
of pure poetry with political and personal satire in all litera-
ture," says W. E. Henley — which appeared in the following
year, sublimated all the fire and passion of the fight against
Napoleon in which Hugo had borne so prominent a part.
The nine years which followed — years which witnessed the
publication of only three more works — gave the quietude and
seclusion of Hauteville House time to do their work in the
ripening of genius. By 1862, when Les Miserables made its
appearance simultaneously in ten languages, Hugo's mind

Introduction ix

was less concerned with the ephemeras of his day than with
the abiding facts of human nature. In this work, with all
his wealth of invention, his beauty of diction, and all the
sincerity of which he was capable, Hugo set forth in one
glowing panorama the tragi-comedy of modern life. I do not
claim for the work that it is Hugo's greatest. That distinction
must remain with his poetry. The style of Les Miserables
may be too full of mannerisms, the book may lack humour,
there may be passages in which the interest is not sustained
at a height proportionate to their length; but nevertheless,
both as a picture of European life and thought at one of its
most important stages, and as the record of the attitude
towards that life of one of the master minds of its period, Les
Miser aoles must always remain of immense value to the
student of man and of engrossing interest to the lover of letters.
It is one of those triumphs which forced even so unsympathetic
a critic of his work as W. E. Henley to admit that Hugo is
" far and away the greatest artist in words that modern France
has seen."

Les Miserables is an immortal book, not only because it is
the work of a genius, but because its theme is perennial.
It is not, alas, the day after to-morrow that humane men will
cease to be interested in the sins and sorrows of humanity.
For Hugo, certainly, the day of that indifference never dawned.
His political career proved it. Behind all his posing, all I his
faith in himself, there surged up a passionate demand for an
answer to the question : Why are we such devils to one another ?
I believe that was to him the supreme problem. Over and
over again he sets it forth in his works, putting it now this
way and now that as if never despairing of finding some form
in which it shall seem solvable. Now and then, it is true,
one does find the facts set out almost hopelessly, with a bitter
union of pain and scorn: —

Homm», mon frere, nous soinmes

Deux hommes
Et, pleins de venins,

Deux nains.

Ton desir secret concerte

Ma perte,
Et mon noir souhait

Te bait.

It is as if Hugo saw not merely Tennyson's " Nature," but all

x Les Miserables

life from end to end of the chain " red in tooth and claw,"
and sent from a wounded heart the cry: —

Tout se tient par une chaine

De haine;
On voit dans les fleurs

Des pleurs.

In sounding that depth of feeling Hugo did but share the
experience of many a noble heart before and since. But in
him, as Swinburne has said, mankind witnessed " the fusion
of pity and horror into a fiery and burning charity " which
found its most consummate utterance in Les Miserables.
Like a good physician, Hugo knew a clear understanding of
an evil to be essential to its cure. And here, depicted by a
master hand in the very performance of its fell work, is that
elaborate machinery for the manufacture of unhappiness which
we miscall civilisation. If the romanticists in general sought
in the Middle Ages the colour, material, and often even the
manner of their work, Hugo sought more than they. He
sought, and found, the spirit of kindliness and of brother-
hood which made man more to man than a mere being upon
whom one might fitly exercise the lambent brilliance of a
slanderous wit, or with whom one might profitably "do a
deal." That is the gospel of Les Miserables.

Keen as was Hugo's sympathy with the sorrows of humanity,
he was not obsessed by them to the exclusion of all else. He
saw, as I said in beginning, both life and matter. In Swin-
burne's words, he offered a " fiery devotion to all that was
beautiful, noble, venerable in the past " and in nature. It
informed him with " a passion of reverence " and made him
that " great crusader against modern barbarism whose crown-
ing appeal to his countrymen on behalf of their ravaged and
desecrated inheritance was delivered in the famous pamphlet
Guerre aux Demolisseurs ! The ruined wonders of Karnac
gave him ' almost a moment of despair.' The wreck of ' an
unique thing which is no more ' wrung from his indignation
a cry of natural and noble anguish." To Hugo, nothing that
had played a part in the pageant of the centuries could be a
matter of indifference. Prophet and bard, he had the seeing
eye without which his " genius of diction " had been vain.
But that is not all. To these twain Hugo added that thing,
unknown and indefinable, which stirs in the wild places of the
earth and is the soul of beauty. For it is his chief est glory
that his own words, which the bathing peasant-girl sang to him

Introduction xi

on the shore at Biarritz, were true of himself in a degree
remarkable even among the few great ones of whom they
are true at all: —

Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne
Me rendra fou.

S. R. JOHN.
1909.

The following is a list of the chief publications of Victor
Hugo: —

POETICAL WORKS: — Nouvelles Odes, 1824; Odes et Poesies Diverses,
1822; Odes et Ballades, 1826; Les Orient ales, 1829; Feuilles d'Automne,
1831; Les Chants du Crepuscule, 1835; Les Voix Interieures, 1837; Les
Rayons et les Ombres, 1840; Odes sur Napoleon, 1840; Les Chatiments,
1853; Les Contemplations, 1856; La Legende des Siecles (ist part),
1859; Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois, 1865; L'Annee Terrible, 1872;
La Legende des Siecles (2nd part), 1877; L'Art^d'etre Grand-pere, 1877;
Le Pape, 1878; La Piti6 Supreme, 1879; L'Ane, 1880; Religion et
Religions, 1880; Les Quatre Vents de 1'Esprit, 1881; La L6gende des
Siecles (3rd part), 1883.

DRAMATIC WORKS: — Cromwell, 1827; Amy Robsart, 1828; Hernanl,
1830; Marion Delorme, 1831; Le Roi s'amuse, 1832; Lucrece Borgia,
1833; Marie Tudor, 1833; Angelo, Tyran de Padoue, 1835; La Esmeralda
(libretto for Opera), 1836; Ruy Bias, 1838; Burgraves, 1843; Torquemada,
1882.

NOVELS AND OTHER PROSE WORKS: — Hans d'Islande, 1823; Bug-Jargal
(enlarged for book form), 1826: Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamn6, 1829;
Notre -Dame de Paris, 1831; Etude sur Mirabeau, 1834; Claude Gueux,
1834; Le Rhin, 1842; Napol6on le Petit, 1852; Les Mis6rables, 1862;
Littdrature et Philosophic melees, 1864; William Shakespeare, 1864; Les
Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866; L'Homme qui rit, 1869; Actes et Paroles,
1872; Quatre-Vingt-Treize, 1873; Histoire d'un Crime, 1877; Discours
pour Voltaire, 1878; Le Domaine public payant, 1878; L'Archipel de
la Manche, 1883.

Hugo left a mass of manuscripts, of which some have been published
since his death: — Le Theatre en Liberte, La Fin de Satan, Dieu, Choses
Vues, Tonte la Lyre, Ocean, En Voyage, Postscriptum de ma Vie.

An Edition Definitive of his works in 48 volumes was published 1880-5.

TRANSLATIONS: — Of novels, 28 vols., 1895, 1899, etc.; of dramas, by
I. G. Burnham, 1895. Separate translations of prose and poetical works.

LIFE: — Among the biographies and appreciations are: — Sainte-Beuve,
Biographic des Con temporains, vol. iv., 1831; Portraits Contemporains, vol.
L, 1846; Victor Hugo raconte par un temoin de sa vie (Madame Hugo), 1863 ;
A. Barbou, 1880 (trans. 1881); E. Eire, Victor Hugo avant 1830, 1883;
apres 1830, 1891; apres 1852, 1894; F. W. H. Myers, Essays, 1883; Paul
de Saint Victor, 1885, 1892; Alfred Asseline, Victor Hugo intime, 1885;
G. B. Smith, 1.885 ; J- Cappon.A Memoir and a Study, 1885 ; A.C. Swinburne,
A Study of Victor Hugo, 1886; E. Dupuy, Victor Hugo, l'homme et le
poete, 1886; F. T. Marzials (Great Writers), 1888; Charles Renouvier,
Victor Hugo le Poete, 1892; L. Mabilleau, 1893; J. P. Nichol, 1893; C.
Renouvier, Victor Hugo le Philosophic, 1900; E. Rigal, 1900; G. V.
Hugo, Mon Grand-pere, 1902; Juana LescUde, Victo Hugo intime, 1902;
Theophile Gautier, 1902; F. Gregh, Etude sur Victor Hugo, 1905; P.
Stapfers, Victor Hugo a Guernsey, 1905.

CONTENTS

FANTINE

BOOK

PAGE

I. AN UPRIGHT MAN ........ 3

II. THE FALL ... 58

III. THE YEAR 1817 "i

IV. To ENTRUST IS SOMETIMES TO ABANDON .... 139

V. THE DESCENT 152

VI. JAVERT ..'... .... I92

VII. THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR 204

VIII. COUNTER-STROKE ........ 271

COSETTE

I. WATERLOO ......... 291

II. THE SHIP ORION 345

III. FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE TO THE DEPARTED . . 360

IV. THE OLD GORBEAU HOUSE ...... 412

!V. A DARK CHASE NEEDS A SILENT HOUND .... 429

VI. PETIT PICPUS ......... 459

VII. A PARENTHESIS ........ 488

VIII. CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT is GIVEN THEM .... 501

MARIUS

I. PARIS ATOMISED 553

II. THE GRAND BOURGEOIS ....... 573

III. THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON .... 583

IV. THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC. . . . . . 619

V. THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE ..... 649

Xli)

PREFACE

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a
social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, arti-
ficially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is
divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of
the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman
by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and
spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions,
social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a
yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and
misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.

LES MISERABLES

FANTINE

BOOK FIRST— AN UPRIGHT MAN

M. MYRIEL

IN 1815, M. Charles Fran£ois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of

D . He was a man of seventy-five, and had occupied the

bishopric of D since 1806. Although it in no manner con-
cerns, even in the remotest degree, what we have to relate, it
may not be useless, were it only for the sake of exactness in
all things, to notice here the reports and gossip which had arisen
on his account from the time of his arrival in the diocese.

Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much
influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies,
as what they do.

M. Myriel was the son of a counsellor of the Parlement of
Aix; of the rank given to the legal profession. His father,
intending him to inherit his place, had contracted a marriage
for him at the early age of eighteen or twenty, according to
a widespread custom among parliamentary families. Charles
Myriel, notwithstanding this marriage, had, it was said, been an
object of much attention. His person was admirably moulded;
although of slight figure, he was elegant and graceful; all the
earlier part of his life had been devoted to the world and to its
pleasures. The revolution came, events crowded upon each
other; the parliamentary families, decimated, hunted, and pur-
sued, were soon dispersed. M. Charles Myriel, on the first out-
break of the revolution, emigrated to Italy. His wife died there
of a lung complaint with which she had long been threatened.
They had no children. What followed in the fate of M. Myriel ?
The decay of the old French society, the fall of his own family,
the tragic sights of '93, still more fearful, perhaps, to the exiles
who beheld them from afar, magnified by fright — did these

4 Les Miserables

arouse in him ideas of renunciation and of solitude? Was he,
in the midst of one of the reveries or emotions which then con-
sumed his life, suddenly attacked by one of those mysterious
and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by smiting to
the heart, the man whom public disasters could not shake, by
aiming at life or fortune? No one could have answered; all
that was known was that when he returned from Italy he was
a priest.

In 1804, M. Myriel was cure of B (Brignolles). He was

then an old man, and lived in the deepest seclusion.

Near the time of the coronation, a trifling matter of business
belonging to his curacy — what it was, is not now known precisely
— took fiim to Paris.

Among other personages of authority he went to Cardinal
Fesch on behalf of his parishioners.

One day, when the emperor had come to visit his uncle, the
worthy cure, who was waiting in the ante-room, happened to
be on the way of his Majesty. Napoleon noticing that the old
man looked at him with a certain curiousness, turned around
and said brusquely:

" Who is this goodman who looks at me? "

" Sire," said M. Myriel, " you behold a good man, and I a
great man. Each of us may profit by it."

That evening the emperor asked the cardinal the name of
the cure, and some time afterwards M. Myriel was overwhelmed
with surprise on learning that he had been appointed Bishop

Beyond this, no one knew how much truth there was in the
stories which passed current concerning the first portion of M.
Myriel's life. But few families had known the Myriels before
the revolution.

M. Myriel had to submit to the fate of every new-comer in a
small town, where there are many tongues to talk, and but few
heads to think. He had to submit, although he was bishop, and
because he was bishop. But after all, the gossip with which
his name was connected, was only gossip: noise, talk, words,
less than words— palabres, as they say in the forcible language
of the South.

Be that as it may, after nine years of episcopacy, and of

residence in D , all these stories, topics of talk, which

engross at first petty towns and petty people, were entirely
forgotten. Nobody would have dared to speak of, or even to
remember them.

Fantine 5

When M. Myriel came to D he was accompanied by an

old lady, Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, ten years
younger than himself.

Their only domestic was a woman of about the same age as
Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was called Madame Magloire, and
who, after having been the servant of M. le cure", now took the
double title of femme de chambre of Mademoiselle and house-
keeper of Monseigneur.

Mademoiselle Baptistine was a tall, pale, thin, sweet person.
She fully realised the idea which is expressed by the word
" respectable ; " for it seems as if it were necessary that a
woman should be a mother to be venerable. She had never
been pretty; her whole life, which had been but a succession
of pious works, had produced upon her a kind of transparent
whiteness, and in growing old she had acquired what may be
called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her
youth had become in maturity transparency, and this etherial-
ness permitted gleams of the angel within. She was more a
spirit than a virgin mortal. Her form was shadow-like, hardly
enough body to convey the thought of sex — a little earth con-
taining a spark — large eyes, always cast down; a pretext for a
soul to remain on earth.

Madame Magloire was a little, white, fat, jolly, bustling old
woman, always out of breath, caused first by her activity, and
then by the asthma.

M. Myriel, upon his arrival, was installed in his episcopal
palace with the honours ordained by the imperial decrees, which
class the bishop next in rank to the field-marshal. The mayor
and the president made him the first visitrand he, on his part,
paid like honour to the general and the prefect.

The installation being completed, the town was curious to
see its bishop at work.

M. MYRIEL BECOMES MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU

THE bishop's palace at D was contiguous to the hospital:

the palace was a spacious and beautiful edifice, built of stone
near the beginning of the last century by Monseigneur Henri
Pujet, a doctor of theology of the Faculty of Paris, abbe of

Simore, who was bishop of D in 1712. The palace was in

truth a lordly dwelling: there was an air of grandeur about

6 Lcs Miserables

everything, the apartments of the bishop, the saloons, the
chambers, the court of honour, which was very large, with
arched walks after the antique Florentine style; and a garden
planted with magnificent trees.

In the dining hall was a long, superb gallery, which was level
with the ground, opening upon the garden; Monseigneur Henri
Pujet had given a grand banquet on the 2gth of July, 1714, to
Monseigneur Charles Brulart de Genii s, archbishop, Prince
d'Embrun, Antoine de Mesgrigny, capuchin, bishop of Grasse,
Philippe de Vendome, grand-prior de France, the Abb6 de Saint
Honor^ de Le"rins, Fra^ois de Berton de Grillon, lord bishop of
Vence, Cesar de Sabran de Forcalquier, lord bishop of Glandeve,
et Jean Soanen, priest of the oratory, preacher in ordinary to
the king, lord bishop of Senez; the portraits of these seven
reverend personages decorated the hall, and this memorable
date, July 29th, 1714, appeared in letters of gold on a white
marble tablet.

The hospital was a low, narrow, one story building with a
small garden.

Three days after the bishop's advent he visited the hospital ;
when the visit was ended, he invited the director to oblige him
by coming to the palace.

" Monsieur," he said to the director of the hospital, " how
many patients have you? "

" Twenty-six, monseigneur."

" That is as I counted them," said the bishop.

" The beds," continued the director, " are very much
crowded."

" I noticed it."

" The wards are but small chambers, and are not easily
ventilated."

" It seems so to me."

" And then, when the sun does shine, the garden is very
small for the convalescents."

" That was what I was thinking."

" Of epidemics we have had typhus fever this year; two
years ago we had miliary fever, sometimes one hundred patients,
and we did not know what to do."

" That occurred to me."

" What can we do, monseigneur? " said the director; " we
must be resigned."

This conversation took place in the dining gallery on the
ground floor.

Fantinc 7

The bishop was silent a few moments: then he turned
suddenly towards the director.

" Monsieur," he said, " how many beds do you think this
hall alone would contain? "

"The dining hall of monseigneur ! " exclaimed the director,
stupefied.

The bishop ran his eyes over the hall, seemingly taking
measure and making calculations.

" It will hold twenty beds," said he to himself; then raising
his voice, he said:

" Listen, Monsieur Director, to what I have to say. There is
evidently a mistake here. There are twenty-six of you in five
or six small rooms: there are only three of us, and space for
sixty. There is a mistake, I tell you. You have my house
and I have yours. Restore mine to me; you are at home."

Next day the twenty-six poor invalids were installed in the
bishop's palace, and the bishop was in the hospital.

M. Myriel had no property, his family having been im-
poverished by the revolution. His sister had a life estate of
five hundred francs, which in the vicarage sufficed for her
personal needs. M. Myriel received from the government as
bishop a salary of fifteen thousand francs. The day on which
he took up his residence in the hospital building, he resolved
to appropriate this sum once for all to the following uses. We
copy the schedule then written by him.

Schedule for the Regulation of my Household Expenses

11 For the little seminary, fifteen hundred livres.

Mission congregation, one hundred livres.

For the Lazaristes of Montdidier, one hundred livres.

Congregation of the Saint-Esprit, one hundred and fifty livres-..

Seminary of foreign missions in Paris, two hundred livres.

Religious establishments in the Holy Land, one hundred*
livres.

Maternal charitable societies, three hundred livres.

For that of Aries, fifty livres.

For the amelioration of prisons, four hundred livres.

For the relief and deliverance of prisoners, five hundred livres-.

For the liberation of fathers of families imprisoned for debt,
one thousand livres.

Additions to the salaries of poor schoolmasters of the diocese,.,
two thousand livres.

8 Les Miserables

Public storehouse of Hautes-Alpes, one hundred livres.

Association of the ladies of D of Manosque and Sisteron

for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls, fifteen hundred livres.
For the poor, six thousand livres.
My personal expenses, one thousand livres.
Total, fifteen thousand livres."

M. Myriel made no alteration in this plan during the time he

held the see of D ; he called it, as will be seen, the regulation

of his household expenses.

Mademoiselle Baptistine accepted this arrangement with
entire submission: M. Myriel was to her at once her brother
and her bishop, her companion by ties of blood and her superior
by ecclesiastical authority. She loved and venerated him un-
affectedly: when he spoke, she listened; when he acted, she
gave him her co-operation. Madame Magloire, however, their
servant, grumbled a little. The bishop, as will be seen, had
reserved but a thousand francs; this, added to the income of
Mademoiselle Baptistine, gave them a yearly independence of
fifteen hundred francs, upon which the three old people subsisted.

Thanks, however, to the rigid economy of Madame Magloire,
and the excellent management of Mademoiselle Baptistine,

whenever a curate came to D , the bishop found means to

extend to him his hospitality.

About three months after the installation, the bishop said
one day, " With all this I am very much cramped." " I think
so too," said Madame Magloire: " Monseigneur has not even
asked for the sum due him by the department for his carriage
expenses in town, and in his circuits in the diocese. It was
formerly the custom with all bishops."

" Yes ! " said the bishop; " you are right, Madame Magloire."

He made his application.

Some time afterwards the conseil-g&ieVal took his claim into
consideration and voted him an annual stipend of three thousand
francs under this head : " Allowance to the bishop for carriage
expenses, and travelling expenses for pastoral visits."

The bourgeoisie of the town were much excited on the subject,
and in regard to it a senator of the empire, formerly member of
the Council of Five Hundred, an advocate of the Eighteenth

Brumaire, now provided with a rich senatorial seat near D ,

wrote to M. Bigot de Preameneu, Minister of Public Worship, a
fault-finding, confidential epistle, from which we make the
.following extract: —

Fantine 9

" Carriage expenses ! What can he want of it in a town of
less than 4000 inhabitants ? Expenses of pastoral visits ! And
what good do they do, in the first place; and then, how is it
possible to travel by post in this mountain region? There are
no roads; he can go only on horseback. Even the bridge over
the Durance at Chateau-Arnoux is scarcely passable for ox-
carts. These priests are always so; avaricious and miserly.
This one played the good apostle at the outset: now he acts
like the rest; he must have a carriage and post-chaise. He
must have luxury like the old bishops. Bah ! this whole priest-
hood! Monsieur le Comte, things will never be better till the
emperor delivers us from these macaroni priests. Down with
the pope! (Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.) As
for me, I am for Caesar alone," etc., etc., etc.

This application, on the other hand, pleased Madame Magloire
exceedingly. "Good," said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine;
" Monseigneur began with others, but he has found at last that
he must end by taking care of himself. He has arranged all his
charities, and so now here are three thousand francs for us."

The same evening the bishop wrote and gave to his sister a
note couched in these terms:

Carnage and Travelling Expenses

" For beef broth for the hospital, fifteen hundred livres.

For the Aix Maternal Charity Association, two hundred and
fifty livres.

For the Draguignan Maternal Charity Association, two
hundred and fifty livres.

For Foundlings, five hundred livres.

For Orphans, five hundred livres.

Total, three thousand livres."

Such was the budget of M. Myriel.

In regard to the official perquisites, marriage licences, dis-
pensations, private baptisms, and preaching, consecrations of
churches or chapels, marriages, etc., the bishop gathered them
from the wealthy with as much exactness as he dispensed them
to the poor.

In a short time donations of money began to come in; those
who had and those who had not, knocked at the bishop's door;
some came to receive alms and others to bestow them, and in
less than a year he had become the treasurer of all the bene-

i o Les Miserables

volent, and the dispenser to all the needy. Large sums passed
through his hands; nevertheless he changed in no wise his mode
of life, nor added the least luxury to his simple fare.

On the contrary, as there is always more misery among the
lower classes than there is humanity in the higher, everything
was given away, so to speak, before it was received, like water
on thirsty soil; it was well that money came to him, for he
never kept any; and besides he robbed himself. It being the
custom that all bishops should put their baptismal names at
the head of their orders and pastoral letters, the poor people of
the district had chosen by a sort of affectionate instinct, from
among the names of the bishop, that which was expressive to
them, and they always called him Monseigneur Bienvenu. We
shall follow their example and shall call him thus ; besides, this
pleased him. " I like this name," said he; " Bienvenu counter-
balances Monseigneur."

We do not claim that the portrait which we present here is
a true one; we say only that it resembles him.

Ill

GOOD BISHOP— HARD BISHOPRIC

THE bishop, after converting his carriage into alms, none the
less regularly made his round of visits, and in the diocese of

D this was a wearisome task. There was very little plain,

a good deal of mountain; and hardly any roads, as a matter of
course; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarages, and two hun-
dred and eighty-five sub-curacies. To visit all these is a great
labour, but the bishop went through with it. He travelled on
foot in his own neighbourhood, in a cart when he was in the
plains, and in a cacolei, a basket strapped on the back of a
mule, when in the mountains. The two women usually accom-
panied him, but when the journey was too difficult for them
he went alone.

One day he arrived at Senez, formerly the seat of a bishopric,
mounted on an ass. His purse was very empty at the time,
and would not permit any better conveyance. The mayor of
the city came to receive him at the gate of the episcopal resi-
dence, and saw him dismount from his ass with astonishment
and mortification. Several of the citizens stood near by,
laughing. " Monsieur Mayor," said the bishop, " and Messieurs

Fantine 1 1

citizens, I see what astonishes you; you think that it shows a
good deal of pride for a poor priest to use the same conveyance
which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done it from necessity,
I assure you, and not from vanity."

In his visits he was indulgent and gentle, and preached less
than he talked. He never used far-fetched reasons or examples.
To the inhabitants of one region he would cite the example of
a neighbouring region. In the cantons where the necessitous
were treated with severity he would say, " Look at the people
of Briancon. They have given to the poor, and to widows and
orphans, the right to mow their meadows three days before any
one else. When their houses are in ruins they rebuild them
without cost. And so it is a country blessed of God. For a
whole century they have not had a single murderer."

In villages where the people were greedy for gain at harvest
time, he would say, " Look at Embrun. If a father of a family,
at harvest time, has his sons in the army, and his daughters at
service in the city, and he is sick, the priest recommends him
in his sermons, and on Sunday, after mass, the whole population
of the village, men, women, and children, go into the poor man's
field and harvest his crop, and put the straw and the grain into
his granary." To families divided by questions of property
and inheritance, he would say, " See the mountaineers of
Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard
there once in fifty years. Well now, when the father dies, in
a family, the boys go away to seek their fortunes, and leave the
property to the girls, so that they may get husbands." In
those cantons where there was a taste for the law, and where
the farmers were ruining themselves with stamped paper, he
would say, " Look at those good peasants of the valley of
Queyras. There are three thousand souls there. Why, it is
like a little republic! Neither judge nor constable is known
there. The mayor does everything. He apportions the impost,
taxes each one according to his judgment, decides their quarrels
without charge, distributes their patrimony without fees, gives
judgment without expense; and he is obeyed, because he is a
just man among simple-hearted men." In the villages which
he found without a schoolmaster, he would again hold up the
valley of Queyras. " Do you know how they do ? " he would
say. " As a little district of twelve or fifteen houses cannot
always support a teacher, they have schoolmasters that are paid
by the whole valley, who go around from village to village,
passing a week in this place, and ten days in that, and give

1 2 Les Miserables

instruction. These masters attend the fairs, where I have seen
them. They are known by quills which they wear in their hat-
band. Those who teach only how to read have one quill ; those
who teach reading and arithmetic have two; and those who
teach reading, arithmetic, and Latin, have three ; the latter are
esteemed great scholars. But what a shame to be ignorant!
Do like the people of Queyras."

In such fashion would he talk, gravely and paternally; in
default of examples he would invent parables, going straight to
his object, with few phrases and many images, which was the
very eloquence of Jesus Christ, convincing and persuasive.

WORKS ANSWERING WORDS

His conversation was affable and pleasant. He adapted him-
self to the capacity of the two old women who lived with him,
but when he laughed, it was the laugh of a school-boy.

Madame Magloire usually called him Your Greatness. One
day he rose from his arm-chair, and went to his library for a
book. It was upon one of the upper shelves, and as the bishop
was rather short, he could not reach it. " Madame Magloire,"
said he, " bring me a chair. My greatness does not extend ta
this shelf."

One of his distant relatives, the Countess of L6, rarely let an
occasion escape of enumerating in his presence what she called
" the expectations " of her three sons. She had several
relatives, very old and near their death, of whom her sons were
the legal heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from
a great-aunt a hundred thousand livres in the funds; the
second was to take the title of duke from his uncle; the eldest
would succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The bishop
commonly listened in silence to these innocent and pardonable
maternal displays. Once, however, he appeared more dreamy
than was his custom, while Madame de L6 rehearsed the detail
of all these successions and all these " expectations." Stopping
suddenly, with some impatience, she exclaimed, " My goodness,
cousin, what are you thinking about? " " I am thinking,"
said the bishop, " of a strange thing which is, I believe, in St.
Augustine: ' Place your expectations on him to whom there
is no succession ! ' "

Fantine 1 3

On another occasion, when he received a letter announcing
the decease of a gentleman of the country, in which were
detailed, at great length, not only the dignities of the departed,
but the feudal and titular honours of all his relatives, he ex-
claimed: " What a broad back has death! What a wondrous
load of titles will he cheerfully carry, and what hardihood
must men have who will thus use the tomb to feed their
vanity! "

At times he made use of gentle raillery, which was almost
always charged with serious ideas. Once, during Lent, a young
vicar came to D , and preached in the cathedral. The sub-
ject of his sermon was charity, and he treated it very eloquently.
He called upon the rich to give alms to the poor, if they would
escape the tortures of hell, which he pictured in the most fearful
colours, and enter that paradise which he painted as so desirable
and inviting. There was a retired merchant of wealth in the
audience, a little given to usury, M. Geborand, who had accumu-
lated an estate of two millions in the manufacture of coarse
cloths and serges. Never, in the whole course of his life, had
M. Geborand given alms to the unfortunate; but from the date
of this sermon it was noticed that he gave regularly, every
Sunday, a penny to the old beggar women at the door of the
cathedral. There were six of them to share it. The bishop
chanced to see him one day, as he was performing this act of
charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, " See Monsieur
Geborand, buying a pennyworth of paradise."

When soliciting aid for any charity, he was not silenced by a
refusal ; he was at no loss for words that would set the hearers
thinking. One day, he was receiving alms for the poor in a
parlour in the city, where the Marquis of Champtercier, who
was old, rich, and miserly, was present. The marquis managed
to be, at the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra- Voltairian,
a species of which he was not the only representative. The
bishop coming to him in turn, touched his arm and said, " Mon-
sieur le Marquis, you must give me something." The marquis
turned and answered drily, " Monseigneur, I have my own
poor." " Give them to me," said the bishop.

One day he preached this sermon in the cathedral : —

" My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are in
France thirteen hundred and twenty thousand peasants'
cottages that have but three openings; eighteen hundred and
seventeen thousand that have two, the door and one window;
and finally, three hundred and forty-six thousand cabins, with

14 Les Miserables

only one opening — the door. And this is in consequence of
what is called the excise upon doors and windows. In these
poor families, among the aged women and the little children,
dwelling in these huts, how abundant is fever and disease?
Alas ! God gives light to men ; the law sells it. I do not blame
the law, but I bless God. In Isere, in Var, and in the Upper
and the Lower Alps, the peasants have not even wheelbarrows,
they carry the manure on their backs; they have no candles,
but burn pine knots, and bits of rope soaked in pitch. And the
same is the case all through the upper part of Dauphine". They
make bread once in six months, and bake it with the refuse of
the fields. In the winter it becomes so hard that they cut it
up with an axe, and soak it for twenty-four hours, before they
can eat it. My brethren, be compassionate ! behold how much
suffering there is around you."

Born a Proven£al, he had easily made himself familiar with
all the patois of the south. He would say, " Eh, be I moussu,
ses sage ?" as in Lower Languedoc; " Onte anaras passa ? " as
in the Lower Alps; " Puerte un bouen moutou embe un bouen
jroumage grase," as in Upper Dauphine. This pleased the
people greatly, and contributed not a little to giving him ready
access to their hearts. He was the same in a cottage and on
the mountains as in his own house. He could say the grandest
things in the most common language; and as he spoke all
dialects, his words entered the souls of all.

Moreover, his manners with the rich were the same as with
the poor.

He condemned nothing hastily, or without taking account of
circumstances. He would say, " Let us see the way in which
the fault came to pass."

Being, as he smilingly described himself, an ex-sinner, he had
none of the inaccessibility of a rigorist, and boldly professed,
even under the frowning eyes of the ferociously virtuous, a
doctrine which may be stated nearly as follows: —

" Man has a body which is at once his burden and his temp-
tation. He drags it along, and yields to it.

" He ought to watch over it, to keep it in bounds; to repress
it, and only to obey it at the last extremity. It may be wrong
to obey even then, but if so, the fault is venial. It is a fall,
but a fall upon the knees, which may end in prayer.

" To be a saint is the exception; to be upright is the rule.
Err, falter, sin, but be upright.

" To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To

Fantine 1 5

live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial
is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation."

When he heard many exclaiming, and expressing great indig-
nation against anything, " Oh! oh!" he would say, smiling,
" It would seem that this is a great crime, of which they are
all guilty. How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself,
and to get under cover."

He was indulgent towards women, and towards the poor,
upon whom the weight of society falls most heavily; and said:
"The faults of women, children, and servants, of the feeble,
the indigent, and the ignorant, are the faults of their husbands,
fathers, and masters, of the strong, the rich, and the wise." At
other times, he said, " Teach the ignorant as much as you can;
society is culpable in not providing instruction for all, and it
must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is
left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not
he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness."

As we see, he had a strange and peculiar way of judging
things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.

In company one day he heard an account of a criminal case
that was about to be tried. A miserable man, through love for
a woman and for the child she had borne him, had been making
false coin, his means being exhausted. At that time counter-
feiting was still punished with death. The woman was arrested
for passing the first piece that he had made. She was held a
prisoner, but there was no proof against her lover. She alone
could testify against him, and convict him by her confession.
She denied his guilt. They insisted, but she was obstinate in
her denial. In this state of the case, the procureur du roi
devised a shrewd plan. He represented to her that her lover
was unfaithful, and by mear\s of fragments of letters skilfully
put together, succeeded in persuading the unfortunate woman
that she had a rival, and that this man had deceived her. At
once exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her lover, con-
fessed all, and proved his guilt. He was to be tried in a few
days, at Aix, with his accomplice, and his conviction was
certain. The story was told, and everybody was in ecstasy at
the adroitness of the officer. In bringing jealousy into play,
he had brought truth to light by means of anger, and justice
had sprung from revenge. The bishop listened to all this in
silence. When it was finished he asked :

" Where are this man and woman to be tried? "

" At the Assizes."

1 6 Les Miserables

" And where is the procureur du roi to be tried? "

A tragic event occurred at D . A man had been con-
demned to death for murder. The unfortunate prisoner was a
poorly educated, but not entirely ignorant man, who had been
a juggler at fairs, and a public letter- writer. The people were
greatly interested in the trial. The evening before the day
fixed for the execution of the condemned, the almoner of the
prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the prisoner in
his last moments. The cure was sent for, but he refused to go,
saying, " That does not concern me. I have nothing to do with
such drudgery, or with that mountebank; besides, I am sick
myself; and moreover it is not my place." When this reply
was reported to the bishop, he said, " The cure is right. It is
not his place, it is mine."

He went, on the instant, to the prison, went down into the
dungeon of the " mountebank," called him by his name, took
him by the hand, and talked with him. He passed the whole
day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for
the soul of the condemned, and exhorting the condemned to
join with him. He spoke to him the best truths, which are the
simplest. He was father, brother, friend; bishop for blessing
only. He taught him everything by encouraging and consoling
him. This man would have died in despair. Death, for him,
was like an abyss. Standing shivering upon the dreadful brink,
he recoiled with horror. He was not ignorant enough to be
indifferent. The terrible shock of his condemnation had in
some sort broken here and there that wall which separates us
from the mystery of things beyond, and which we call life.
Through these fatal breaches, he was constantly looking beyond
this world, and he could see nothing but darkness; the bishop
showed him the light.

On the morrow when they came for the poor man, the bishop
was with him. He followed him, and showed himself to the
eyes of the crowd in his violet camail, with his bishop's cross
about his neck, side by side with the miserable being, who was
bound with cords.

He mounted the cart with him, he ascended the scaffold with
him. The sufferer, so gloomy and so horror-stricken in the
evening, was now radiant with hope. He felt that his soul was
reconciled, and he trusted in God. The bishop embraced him,
and at the moment when the axe was about to fall, he said to
him, " whom man kills, him God restoreth to life; whom his
brethren put away, he findeth the Father. Pray, believe, enter

Fantine 1 7

into life ! The Father is there." When he descended from the
scaffold, something in his look made the people fall back. It
would be hard to say which was the most wonderful, his pale
ness or his serenity. As he entered the humble dwelling which
he smilingly called his palace, he said to his sister, " I have been
officiating pontifically."

As the most sublime things are often least comprehended,
there were those in the city who said, in commenting upon the
bishop's conduct, that it was affectation, but such ideas were
confined to the upper classes. The people, who do not look for
unworthy motives in holy works, admired and were softened.

As to the bishop, the sight of the guillotine was a shock to
him, from which it was long before he recovered.

The scaffold, indeed, when it is prepared and set up, has the
effect of a hallucination. We may be indifferent to the death
penalty, and may not declare ourselves, yes or no, so long as
we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when
we see one, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to decide
and take part, for or against. Some admire it, like Le Maistre ;
others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concre-
tion of the law; it is called the Avenger; it is not neutral, and
does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it quakes
with the most mysterious of tremblings. All social questions
set up their points of interrogation about this axe. The scaffold
is vision. The scaffold is not a mere frame, the scaffold is not
a machine, the scaffold is not an inert piece of mechanism made
of wood, of iron, and of ropes. It seems a sort of being which
had some sombre origin of which we can have no idea; one
would say that this frame sees, that this machine understands,
that this mechanism comprehends; that this wood, this iron,
and these ropes, have a will. In the fearful reverie into which
its presence casts the soul, the awful apparition of the scaffold
confounds itself with its horrid work. The scaffold becomes
the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, and
it drinks blood. The scaffold is a sort of monster created by
the judge and the workman, a spectre which seems to live with
a kind of unspeakable life, drawn from all the death which it
has wrought.

Thus the impression was horrible and deep; on the morrow
of the execution, and for many days, the bishop appeared to
be overwhelmed. The almost violent calmness of the fatal
moment had disappeared; the phantom of social justice took
possession of him. He, who ordinarily looked back upon all

i 8 Les Miserables

his actions with a satisfaction so radiant, now seemed to be a
subject of self-reproach. By times he would talk to himself,
and in an undertone mutter dismal monologues. One evening
his sister overheard and preserved the following: " I did not
believe that it could be so monstrous. It is wrong to be so
absorbed in the divine law as not to perceive the human law.
Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that
unknown thing? "

With the lapse of time these impressions faded away, and
were probably effaced. Nevertheless it was remarked that the
bishop ever after avoided passing by the place of execution.

M. Myriel could be called at all hours to the bedside of the
sick and the dying. He well knew that there was his highest
duty and his greatest work. Widowed or orphan families had
no need to send for him; he came of himself. He would sit
silent for long hours by the side of a man who had lost the wife
whom he loved, or of a mother who had lost her child. As he
knew the time for silence, he knew also the time for speech.
Oh, admirable consoler! he did not seek to drown grief in
oblivion, but to exalt and to dignify it by hope. He would say,
" Be careful of the way in which you think of the dead. Think
not of what might have been. Look steadfastly and you shall
see the living glory of your well-beloved dead in the depths of
heaven." He believed that faith is healthful. He sought to
counsel and to calm the despairing man by pointing out to him
the man of resignation, and to transform the grief which looks
down into the grave by showing it the grief which looks up to
the stars.

HOW MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCK LAST
SO LONG

THE private life of M. Myriel was full of the same thoughts as
his public life. To one who could have seen it on the spot, the

voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D lived, would

have been a serious as well as a pleasant sight.

Like all old men, and like most thinkers, he slept but little,
but that little was sound. In the morning he devoted an hour
to meditation, and then said mass, either at the cathedral, or
in his own house. After mass he took his breakfast of rye bread
and milk, and then went to work.

Fantine 19

A bishop is a very busy man ; he must receive the report of
the clerk of the diocese, ordinarily a prebendary, every day;
and nearly every day his grand vicars. He has congregations
to superintend, licences to grant, all ecclesiastical bookselling to
examine, parish and diocesan catechisms, prayer-books, etc.,
charges to write, preachings to authorise, cures and mayors to
make peace between, a clerical correspondence, an administra-
tive correspondence, on the one hand the government, on the
other the Holy See, a thousand matters of business.

What time these various affairs and his devotions and his
breviary left him, he gave first to the needy, the sick, and the
afflicted; what time the afflicted, the sick, and the needy left
him, he gave to labour. Sometimes he used a spade in his
garden, and sometimes he read and wrote. He had but one
name for these two kinds of labour; he called them gardening.
" The spirit is a garden," said he.

Towards noon, when the weather was good, he would go out
and walk in the fields, or in the city, often visiting the cottages
and cabins. He would be seen plodding along, wrapt in his
thoughts, his eyes bent down, resting upon his long cane, wearing
his violet doublet, wadded so as to be very warm, violet stockings
and heavy shoes, and his flat hat, from the three corners of
which hung the three golden grains of spikenard.

His coming made a fete. One would have said that he dis-
pensed warmth and light as he passed along. Old people and
children would come to their doors for the bishop as they would
for the sun. He blessed, and was blessed in return. Whoever
was in need of anything was shown the way to his house.

Now and then he would stop and talk to the little boys and
girls — and give a smile to their mothers. When he had money
his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the
rich.

As he made his cassock last a very long time, in order that it
might not be perceived, he never went out into the city without
his violet doublet. In summer this was rather irksome.

On his return he dined. His dinner was like his breakfast.

At half-past eight in the evening he took supper with his
sister, Madame Magloire standing behind them and waiting on
the table. Nothing could be more frugal than this meal. If,
however, the bishop had one of his cures to supper, Madame
Magloire improved the occasion to serve her master with some
excellent fish from the lakes, or some fine game from the moun-
tain. Every cur6 was a pretext for a fine meal ; the bishop did

2O Les Miserables

not interfere. With these exceptions, there was rarely seen
upon his table more than boiled vegetables, or bread warmed
with oil. And so it came to be a saying in the city, " When
the bishop does not entertain a cure, he entertains a
Trappist."'

After supper he would chat for half an hour with Mademoiselle
Baptistine and Madame Magloire, and then go to his own room
and write, sometimes upon loose sheets, sometimes on the
margin of one of his folios. He was a well-read and even a
learned man. He has left five or six very curious manuscripts
behind him; among them is a dissertation upon this passage in
Genesis : In the beginning the spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters. He contrasts this with three other versions; the
Arabic, which has : the winds of God blew ; Flavius Josephus,
who says : a wind from on high fell upon all the earth ; and
finally the Chaldean paraphrase of Onkelos, which reads: a
wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In
another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo,
Bishop of Ptolemais, a distant relative of the writer of this
book, and proves that sundry little tracts, published in the
last century under the pseudonym of Barleycourt, should be
attributed to that prelate.

Sometimes in the midst of his reading, no matter what book
he might have in his hands, he would suddenly fall into deep
meditation, and when it was over, would write a few lines on
whatever page was open before him. These lines often have no
connection with the book in which they are written. We have
under our own eyes a note written by him upon the margin of
a quarto volume entitled: " Correspondance du Lord Germain
avec les generaux Clinton, Cornwallis, et les amiraux de la Station
de VAmerique. A Versailles, chez Poincot, Libraire, et d Paris,
chez Pissot, Quai des Augustins"

And this is the note:

"Oh Thou who art!

" Ecclesiastes names thee the Almighty; Maccabees names
thee Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee
Liberty; Baruch names thee Immensity; the Psalms name
thee Wisdom and Truth; John names thee Light; the book of
Kings names thee Lord; -Exodus calls thee Providence; Levi-
ticus, Holiness; Esdras, Justice; Creation calls thee God; man
names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, and
that is the most beautiful of all thy names."

Towards nine o'clock in the evening the two women were

Fantinc 2 1

accustomed to retire to their chambers in the second story,
leaving him until morning alone upon the lower floor.

Here it is necessary that we should give an exact idea of the
dwelling of the Bishop of D .

HOW HE PROTECTED HIS HOUSE

THE house which he occupied consisted, as we have said, of a
ground floor and a second story; three rooms on the ground
floor, three on the second story, and an attic above. Behind
the house was a garden of about a quarter of an acre. The
two women occupied the upper floor; the bishop lived below.
The first room, which opened upon the street, was his dining-
room, the second was his bedroom, and the third his oratory.
You could not leave the oratory without passing through the
bedroom, and to leave the bedroom you must pass through
the dining-room. At one end of the oratory there was an alcove
closed in, with a bed for occasions of hospitality. The bishop
kept this bed for the country cures when business or the wants
of their parish brought them to D .

The pharmacy of the hospital, a little building adjoining the
house and extending into the garden, had been transformed
into a kitchen and cellar.

There was also a stable in the garden, which was formerly the
hospital kitchen, where the bishop now kept a couple of cows,
and invariably, every morning, he sent half the milk they gave
to the sick at the hospital. " I pay my tithes," said he.

His room was quite large, and was difficult to warm in bad

weather. As wood is very dear at D , he conceived the

idea of having a room partitioned off from the cow-stable with
a tight plank ceiling. In the coldest weather he passed his
evenings there, and called it his winter parlour.

In this winter parlour, as in the dining-room, the only furniture
was a square white wooden table, and four straw chairs. The
dining-room, however, was furnished with an old sideboard
stained red. A similar sideboard, suitably draped with white
linen and imitation-lace, served for the altar which decorated
the oratory.

His rich penitents and the pious women of D had often

contributed the money for a beautiful new altar for monseig-
oeur's oratory; he had always taken the money and given it

22 Les Miserables

to the poor. " The most beautiful of altars," said he, *' is the
soul of an unhappy man who is comforted and thanks God."

In his oratory he had two prie-dieu straw chairs, and an arm-
chair, also of straw, in the bedroom. When he happened to
have seven or eight visitors at once, the prefect, or the general,
or the major of the regiment in the garrison, or some of the
pupils of the little seminary, he was obliged to go to the stable
for the chairs that were in the winter parlour, to the oratory
for the prie-dieu, and to the bedroom for the arm-chair; in
this way he could get together as many as eleven seats for his
visitors. At each new visit a room was stripped.

It happened sometimes that there were twelve; then the
bishop concealed the embarrassment of the situation by standing
before the fire if it were winter, or by walking in the garden if it
were summer.

There was another chair in the stranger's alcove, but it had
lost half its straw, and had but three legs, so that it could
be used only when standing against the wall. Mademoiselle
Baptistine had also, in her room, a very large wooden easy-
chair, that had once been gilded and covered with flowered
silk, but as it had to be taken into her room through the window,
the stairway being too narrow, it could not be counted among
the movable furniture.

It had been the ambition of Mademoiselle Baptistine to be able
to buy a parlour lounge, with cushions of Utrecht velvet, roses
on a yellow ground, while the mahogany should be in the form
of swans' necks. But this would have cost at least five hundred
francs, and as she had been able to save only forty-two francs
and ten sous for the purpose in five years, she had finally given
it up. But who ever does attain to his ideal ?

Nothing could be plainer in its arrangements than the bishop's
bed-chamber. A window, which was also a door, opening upon
the garden; facing this, the bed, an iron hospital-bed, with
green serge curtains ; in the shadow of the bed, behind a screen,
the toilet utensils, still betraying the elegant habits of the man
of the world; two doors, one near the chimney, leading into the
oratory, the other near the book-case, opening into the dining-
room. The book-case, a large closet with glass doors, filled with
books ; the fire-place, cased with wood painted to imitate marble,
usually without fire; in the fire-place, a pair of andirons orna-
mented with two vases of flowers, once plated with silver, which
was a kind of episcopal luxury; above the fire-place, a copper
crucifix, from which the silver was worn off, fixed upon a piece

Fantine 23

of thread-bare black velvet in a wooden frame from which the
gilt was almost gone; near the window, a large table with an
inkstand, covered with confused papers and heavy volumes.
In front of the table was the straw arm-chair, and before the
bed, a prie-dieu from the oratory.

Two portraits in oval frames hung on the wall on either side
of the bed. Small gilt inscriptions upon the background of the
canvas indicated that the portraits represented, one, the Abbe
de Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude, the other, the Abbe Tourteau,
vicar-general of Agde, abbe of Grandchamps, order of Citeaux,
diocese of Chartres. The bishop found these portraits when he
succeeded to the hospital patients in this chamber, and left them
untouched. They were priests, and probably donors to the
hospital — two reasons why he should respect them. All that
he knew of these two personages was that they had been named
by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his living, on
the same day, the 2yth of April, 1785. Madame Magloire having
taken down the pictures to wipe off the dust, the bishop had
found this circumstance written in a faded ink upon a little
square piece of paper, yellow with time, stuck with four wafers
on the back of the portrait of the Abbe of Grandchamps.

He had at his window an antique curtain of coarse woollen
stuff, which finally became so old that, to save the expense of
a new one, Madame Magloire was obliged to put a large patch
in the very middle of it. This patch was in the form of a cross.
The bishop often called attention to it. " How fortunate that
is," he would say.

Every room in the house, on the ground floor as well as in the
upper story, without exception, was white-washed, as is the
custom in barracks and in hospitals.

However, in later years, as we shall see by-and-by, Madame
Magloire found, under the wall paper, some paintings which
decorated the apartment of Mademoiselle Baptistine. Before
it was a hospital, the house had been a sort of gathering-place
for the citizens, at which time these decorations were introduced.
The floors of the chambers were paved with red brick, which
were scoured every week, and before the beds straw matting
was spread. In all respects the house was kept by the two
women exquisitely neat from top to bottom. This was the only
luxury that the bishop would permit. He would say, " That
takes nothing from the poor."

We must confess that he still retained of what he had formerly,
six silver dishes and a silver soup ladle, which Madame Magloire

24 Les Miserables

contemplated every day with new joy as they shone on the
coarse, white, linen table-cloth. And as we are drawing the

portrait of the Bishop of D just as he was, we must add that

he had said, more than once, " It would be difficult for me to
give up eating from silver."

With this silver ware should be counted two large, massive
silver candlesticks which he inherited from a great-aunt. These
candlesticks held two wax-candles, and their place was upon
the bishop's mantel. When he had any one to dinner, Madame
Magloire lighted the two candles and placed the two candlesticks
upon the table.

There was in the bishop's chamber, at the head of his bed, a
small cupboard in which Madame Magloire placed the six silver
dishes and the great ladle every evening. But the key was never
taken out of it.

The garden, which was somewhat marred by the unsightly
structures of which we have spoken, was laid out with four
walks, crossing at the drain-well in the centre. There was
another walk round the garden, along the white wall which
enclosed it. These walks left four square plats which were
bordered with box. In three of them Madame Magloire culti-
vated vegetables; in the fourth the bishop had planted flowers,
and here and there were a few fruit trees. Madame Magloire
once said to him with a kind of gentle reproach: " Monseigneur,
you are always anxious to make everything useful, but yet here
is a plat that is of no use. It would be much better to have
salads there than bouquets." " Madame Magloire/' replied the
bishop, " you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the
useful." He added, after a moment's silence, " perhaps more
so."

This plat, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the bishop
nearly as much as his books. He usually passed an hour or
two there, trimming, weeding, and making holes here and there
in the ground, and planting seeds. He was as much averse
to insects as a gardener would have wished. He made no pre-
tentions to botany, and knew nothing of groups or classification;
he did not care in the least to decide between Tournefort and
the natural method; he took no part, either for the utricles
against the cotyledons, or for Jussieu against Linnaeus. He
did not study plants, he loved flowers. He had much respect
for the learned, but still more for the ignorant; and, while he
fulfilled his duty in both these respects, he watered his beds
every summer evening with a tin watering-pot painted green.

Fan tine 25

Jot a door in the house had a lock. The door of the dining-
room which, we have mentioned, opened into the cathedral
grounds, was formerly loaded with bars and bolts like the door
of a prison. The bishop had had all this iron-work taken off,
and the door, by night as well as by day, was closed only with
a latch. The passer-by, whatever might be the hour, could
open it with a simple push. At first the two women had been
very much troubled at the door being never locked; but Mon-

seigneur de D said to them: " Have bolts on your own

doors, if you like." They shared his confidence at last, or at
least acted as if they shared it. Madame Magloire alone had
occasional attacks of fear. As to the bishop, the reason for
this is explained, or at least pointed at in these three lines
written by him on the margin of a Bible: " This is the shade
of meaning; the door of a physician should never be closed;
the door of a priest should always be open."

In another book, entitled Philosophic de la Science Medicale,
he wrote this further note: " Am I not a physician as well as
they ? I also have my patients ; first I have theirs, whom they
call the sick; and then I have my own, whom I call the unfor-
tunate."

Yet again he had written: " Ask not the name of him who
asks you for a bed. It is especially he whose name is a burden
to him, who has need of an asylum."

It occurred to a worthy cure, I am not sure whether it was
the cur6 of Couloubroux or the cure of Pomprierry, to ask him
one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, if
monseigneur were quite sure that there was not a degree of
imprudence in leaving his door, day and night, at the mercy
of whoever might wish to enter, and if he did not fear that some
evil would befall a house so poorly defended. The bishop
touched him gently on the shoulder, and said: x " Nisi Dominus
custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt earn."

And then he changed the subject.

He very often said: " There is a bravery for the priest as
well as a bravery for the colonel of dragoons." " Only," added
he, " ours should be quiet."

1 Unless God protects a house, they who guard it, watch in vain.

26 Les Miserables

VII

CRAVATTE

THIS is the proper place for an incident which we must not omit,
for it is one of those which most clearly shows what manner of
man the Bishop of D was.

After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bes, which had
infested the gorges of Ollivolles, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte,
took refuge in the mountains. He concealed himself for some
time with his bandits, the remnant of the troop of Gaspard Bes,
in the county of Nice, then made his way to Piedmont, and
suddenly reappeared in France in the neighbourhood of Barce-
lonnette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He
concealed himself in the caverns of the Joug de 1'Aigle, from
which he made descents upon the hamlets and villages by the
ravines of Ubaye and Ubayette.

He even pushed as far as Embrun, and one night broke into
the cathedral and stripped the sacristy. His robberies desolated
the country. The gensdarmes were put upon his trail, but in
vain. He always escaped; sometimes by forcible resistance.
He was a bold wretch. In the midst of all this terror, the
bishop arrived. He was making his visit to Chastelar. The
mayor came to see him, and urged him to turn back. Cravatte
held the mountains as far as Arche, and beyond; it would
be dangerous, even with an escort. It would expose three or
four poor gensdarmes to useless danger.

" And so," said the bishop, " I intend to go without an
escort."

" Do not think of such a thing," exclaimed the mayor.

" I think so much of it, that I absolutely refuse the gensdarmes,
and I am going to start in an hour."

"To start?"

" To start."

"Alone?"

" Alone."

" Monseigneur, you will not do it."

" There is on the mountain," replied the bishop, " a humble
little commune, that I have not seen for three years ; and they
are good friends of mine, kind and honest peasants. They own
one goat out of thirty that they pasture. They make pretty
woollen thread of various colours, and they play their mountain
airs upon small six-holed flutes. They need some one occasion-

Fantine 27

ally to tell them of the goodness of God. What would they say
of a bishop who was afraid ? What would they say if I should
not go there ? "

" But, monseigneur, the brigands? "

" True," said the bishop, " I am thinking of that. You are
right. I may meet them. They too must need some one to
tell them of the goodness of God."

" Monseigneur, but it is a band ! a pack of wolves ! "

" Monsieur Mayor, perhaps Jesus has made me the keeper of
that very flock. Who knows the ways of providence ? "

" Monseigneur, they will rob you."

" I have nothing."

" They will kill you."

" A simple old priest who passes along muttering his prayer?
No, no; what good would it do them? "

" Oh, my good sir, suppose you should meet them ! "

" I should ask them for alms for my poor."

" Monseigneur, do not go. In the name of heaven! you are
exposing your life."

" Monsieur Mayor," said the bishop, " that is just it. I am
not in the world to care for my life, but for souls."

He would not be dissuaded. He set out, accompanied only
by a child, who offered to go as his guide. His obstinacy was
the talk of the country, and all dreaded the result.

He would not take along his sister, or Madame Magloire.
He crossed the mountain on a mule, met no one, and arrived
safe and sound among his " good friends " the shepherds. He
remained there a fortnight, preaching, administering the holy
rites, teaching and exhorting. When he was about to leave,
he resolved to chant a Te Deum with pontifical ceremonies.
He talked with the cure" about it. But what could be done?
there was no episcopal furniture. They could only place at
his disposal a paltry village sacristy with a few old robes of
worn-out damask, trimmed with imitation-galloon.

" No matter," said the bishop. " Monsieur le cure, at the
sermon announce our Te Deum. That will take care of itself."

All the neighbouring churches were ransacked, but the
assembled magnificence of these humble parishes could not
have suitably clothed a single cathedral singer.

While they were in this embarrassment, a large chest was
brought to the parsonage, and left for the bishop by two un-
known horsemen, who immediately rode away. The chest
was opened; it contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre orna-

28 Les Miserables

mented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, a magnificent
crosier, all the pontifical raiment stolen a month before from
the treasures of Our Lady of Embrun. In the chest was a
paper on which were written these words: " Cravatte to Mon-
seigneur Bienvenu."

" I said that it would take care of itself," said the bishop.
Then he added with a smile : " To him who is contented with
a cure's surplice, God sends an archbishop's cope."

" Monseigneur," murmured the cure, with a shake of the head
and a smile, " God — or the devil."

The bishop looked steadily upon the curd, and replied with
authority: "God!"

When he returned to Chastelar, all along the road, the people
came with curiosity to see him. At the parsonage in Chastelar
he found Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire waiting
for him, and he said to his sister, " Well, was I not right? the
poor priest went among those poor mountaineers with empty
hands; he comes back with hands filled. I went forth placing
my trust in God alone ; I bring back the treasures of a cathedral."

In the evening before going to bed he said further: " Have no
fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and
are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the
real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers
are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or
our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls."

Then turning to his sister: " My sister, a priest should never
take any precaution against a neighbour. What his neighbour
does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer to God
when we think that danger hangs over us. Let us beseech him,
not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into crime
on our account."

To sum up, events were rare in his life. We relate those we
know of; but usually he passed his life in always doing the same
things at the same hours. A month of his year was like an hour
of his day.

As to what became of the " treasures " of the Cathedral of
Embrun, it would embarrass us to be questioned on that point.
There were among them very fine things, and very tempting, and
very good to steal for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen
they had already been by others. Half the work was done;
it only remained to change the course of the theft, and to make
it turn to the side of the poor. We can say nothing more on
the subject. Except that, there was found among the bishop's

Fantine 29

papers a rather obscure note, which is possibly connected with
this affair, that reads as follows : " The question is, whether this
ought to be returned to the cathedral or to the hospital"

VIII

AFTER DINNER PHILOSOPHY

THE senator heretofore referred to was an intelligent man, who
had made his way in life with a directness of purpose which paid
no attention to all those stumbling-blocks which constitute
obstacles in men's path, known as conscience, sworn faith,
justice, and duty; he had advanced straight to his object
without once swerving in the line of his advancement and his
interest. He had been formerly a procureur, mollified by success,
and was not a bad man at all, doing all the little kindnesses that
he could to his sons, sons-in-law, and relatives generally, and
even to his friends; having prudently taken the pleasant side
of life, and availed himself of all the benefits which were thrown
in his way. Everything else appeared to him very stupid.
He was sprightly, and just enough of a scholar to think himself
a disciple of Epicurus, while possibly he was only a product of
Pigault-Lebrun. He laughed readily and with gusto at infinite
and eternal things, and at the " crotchets of the good bishop."
He laughed at them sometimes, with a patronising air, before
M. Myriel himself, who listened.

At some semi-official ceremony, Count * * * (this senator)
and M. Myriel remained to dinner with the prefect. At dessert,
the senator, a little elevated, though always dignified, exclaimed :

" Parbleu, Monsieur Bishop; let us talk. It is difficult for
a senator and a bishop to look each other in the eye without
winking. We are two augurs. I have a confession to make to
you; I have my philosophy."

" And you are right," answered the bishop. " As one makes
his philosophy, so he rests. You are on a purple bed, Monsieur
Senator."

The senator, encouraged by this, proceeded: —

" Let us be good fellows."

" Good devils, even," said the bishop.

" I assure you," resumed the senator, " that the Marquis
d'Argens, Pyrrho, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are not rascals.
I have all my philosophers in my library, gilt-edged."

30 Les Miserables

" Like yourself, Monsieur le Comte," interrupted the bishop.

The senator went on : —

" I hate Diderot; he is an idealogist, a demagogue, and a
revolutionist, at heart believing in God, and more bigoted than
Voltaire. Voltaire mocked at Needham, and he was wrong;
for Needham's eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar
in a spoonful of flour supplied the fiat lux. Suppose the drop
greater and the spoonful larger, and you have the world. Man
is the eel. Then what is the use of an eternal Father? Mon-
sieur Bishop, the Jehovah hypothesis tires me. It is good for
nothing except to produce people with scraggy bodies and empty
heads. Down with this great All, who torments me! Hail,
Zero ! who leaves me quiet. Between us, to open my heart,
and confess to my pastor, as I ought, I will confess that I have
common sense. My head is not turned with your Jesus, who
preaches in every corn-field renunciation and self-sacrifice. It
is the advice of a miser to beggars. Renunciation, for what?
Self-sacrifice, to what? I do not see that one wolf immolates
himself for the benefit of another wolf. Let us dwell, then, with
nature. We are at the summit, and let us have a higher philo-
sophy. What is the use of being in a higher position if we can't
see further than another man's nose? Let us live gaiiy; for
life is all we have. That man has another life, elsewhere, above,
below, anywhere — I don't believe a single word of it. Ah! I
am recommended to self-sacrifice and renunciation, that I should
take care what I do ; that I must break my head over questions
of good and evil, justice and injustice; over the fas and the
nefas. Why? Because I shall have to render an account for
my acts. When ? After death. What a fine dream ! After I
am dead it will take fine fingers to pinch me. I should like to
see a shade grasp a handful of ashes. Let us who are initiated,
and have raised the skirt of Isis, speak the truth; there is
neither good nor evil; there is only vegetation. Let us seek
for the real; let us dig into everything. Let us go to the bottom.
We should scent out the truth, dig in the earth for it, and seize
upon it. Then it gives you exquisite joy ; then you grow strong,
and laugh. I am firmly convinced, Monsieur Bishop, that the
immortality of man is a will-o'-the-wisp. Oh! charming promise.
Trust it if you will! Adam's letter of recommendation! We
have souls, and are to become angels, with blue wings to our
shoulders. Tell me, now, isn't it Tertullian who says that the
blessed will go from one star to another? Well, we shall be
the grasshoppers of the skies. And then we shall see God.

Fantinc 3 1

Tut tut tut. All these heavens are silly. God is a monstrous
myth. I shouldn't say that in the Moniteur, of course, but I
whisper it among my friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice earth
to paradise is to leave the substance for the shadow. I am not
so stupid as to be the dupe of the Infinite. I am nothing; I
call myself Count Nothing, senator. Did I exist before my birth ?
No. Shall I, after my death? No. What am I? A little
dust, aggregated by an organism. What have I to do on this
earth! I have the choice to suffer or to enjoy. Where will
suffering lead me? To nothing. But I shall have suffered.
Where will enjoyment lead me ? To nothing. But I shall have
enjoyed. My choice is made. I must eat or be eaten, and I
choose to eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass.
Such is my philosophy. After which, as I tell you, there is
the grave-digger — the pantheon for us — but all fall into the great
gulf — the end; finis ; total liquidation. This is the vanishing
point. Death is dead, believe me. I laugh at the idea that there
is any one there that has anything to say to me. It is an in-
vention of nurses: Bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men.
No, our morrow is night. Beyond the tomb are only equal
nothings. You have been Sardanapalus, or you have been
Vincent de Paul — that amounts to the same nothing. That is
the truth of it. Let us live, then, above all things; use your
personality while you have it. In fact, I tell you, Monsieur
Bishop, I have my philosophy, and I have my philosophers.
I do not allow myself to be entangled with nonsense. But it
is necessary there should be something for those who are below
us, the bare-foots, knife-grinders, and other wretches. Legends
and chimeras are given them to swallow, about the soul, im-
mortality, paradise, and the stars. They munch that; they
spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing besides,
has the good God — that is the least good he can have. I make
no objection to it, but I keep Monsieur Naigeon for myself.
The good God is good for the people."

The bishop clapped his hands.

" That is the idea," he exclaimed. " This materialism is an
excellent thing, and truly marvellous ; reject it who will. Ah!
when one has it, he is a dupe no more; he does not stupidly
allow himself to be exiled like Cato, or stoned like Stephen,
or burnt alive like Joan of Arc. Those who have succeeded in
procuring this admirable materialism have the happiness of
feeling that they are irresponsible, and of thinking that they can
devour everything in quietness — places, sinecures, honours,.

32 Les Miserables

power rightly or wrongly acquired, lucrative recantations, use-
ful treasons, savoury capitulations of conscience, and that they
will enter their graves with their digestion completed. How
agreeable it is! I do not say that for you, Monsieur Senator.
Nevertheless, I cannot but felicitate you. You great lords have,
you say, a philosophy of your own, for your special benefit —
exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone; good with all
sauces, admirably seasoning the pleasures of life. This philo-
sophy is found at great depths, and brought up by special search.
But you are good princes, and you are quite willing that the
belief in the good God should be the philosophy of the people,
much as goose with onions is the turkey with truffles of the
poor."

THE BROTHER PORTRAYED BY THE SISTER

To afford an idea of the household of the Bishop of D , and

the manner in which these two good women subordinated their
actions, thoughts, even their womanly instincts, so liable to
disturbance, to the habits and projects of the bishop, so that
he had not even to speak, in order to express them ; we cannot
do better than to copy here a letter from Mademoiselle Baptis-
tine to Madame la Vicomtesse de Boischevron, the friend of her
childhood. This letter is in our possession: —

D , Dec. i6th,

" MY DEAR MADAME: Not a day passes that we do not speak
of you; that is customary enough with us; but we have now
another reason. Would you believe that in washing and
dusting the ceilings and walls, Madame Magloire has made
some discoveries? At present, our two chambers, which were
hung with old paper, white-washed, would not disparage a
chateau in the style of your own. Madame Magloire has torn
off all the paper: it had something underneath. My parlour,
where there is no furniture and which we use to dry clothes in,
is fifteen feet high, eighteen feet square, and has a ceiling, once
painted and gilded, with beams like those of your house. This
was covered over with canvas during the time it was used as
a hospital; and then we have wainscoting of the time of our
grandmothers. But it is my own room which you ought to
see. Madame Magloire has discovered beneath at least ten

Fantine 3 3

thicknesses of paper some pictures, which, though not good,
are quite endurable. Telemachus received on horseback, by
Minerva, is one; and then again, he is in the gardens — I forget
their name; another is where the Roman ladies resorted for a
single night. I could say much more ; I have Romans, men and
women [here a word is illegible], and all their retinue. Madame
Magloire has cleaned it all, and this summer she is going to repair
some little damages, and varnish it, and my room will be a
veritable museum. She also found in a corner of the storehouse
two pier tables of antique style; they asked two crowns of six
livres to reguild them, but it is far better to give that to the
poor; besides that they are very ugly, and I much prefer a
round mahogany table. /

" I am always happy: my brother is so good: he gives all he
has to the poor and sick. We are full of cares: the weather
is very severe in the winter, and one must do something for those
who lack. We at least are warmed and lighted, and you know
those are great comforts.

" My brother has his peculiarities ; when he talks he says that
a bishop ought to be thus. Just think of it that the door is
never closed. Come in who will, he is at once my brother's
guest; he fears nothing, not even in the night; he says that is
his form of bravery.

" He wishes me not to fear for him, nor that Madame Magloire
should; he exposes himself to every danger, and prefers that
we should not even seem to be aware of it; one must know how
to understand him.

" He goes out in the rain, walks through the water, travels
in winter, he has no fear of darkness, or dangerous roads, or of
those he may meet.

" Last year he went all alone into a district infested with
robbers. He would not take us. He was gone a fortnight,
and when he came back, though we had thought him dead,
nothing had happened to him, and he was quite well. He said :
' See, how they have robbed me ! ' And he opened a trunk in
which he had the jewels of the Embrun Cathedral which the
robbers had given him.

" Upon that occasion, on the return, I could not keep from
scolding him a little, taking care only to speak while the carriage
made a noise, so that no one could hear us.

" At first I used to say to myself, he stops for no danger,
he is incorrigible. But now I have become used to it. I make
signs to Madame Magloire that she shall not oppose him, and

34 Les Miserables

he runs what risks he chooses. I call away Madame Magloire ;
I go to my room, pray for him, and fall asleep. I am calm, for
I know very well that if any harm happened to him, it would
be my death: I should go away to the good Father with my
brother and my bishop. Madame Magloire has had more
difficulty in getting used to what she calls his imprudence. Now
the thing is settled: we pray together; we are afraid together,
and we go to sleep. Should Satan even come into the house,
no one would interfere. After all, what is there to fear in this
house? There is always One with us who is the strongest:
Satan may visit our house, but the good God inhabits it.

" That is enough for me. My brother has no need now even
to speak a word. I understand him without his speaking, and
we commend ourselves to Providence.

" It must be so with a man whose soul is so noble.

" I asked my brother for the information which you requested
respecting the Faux family. You know how well he knows
about it, and how much he remembers, for he was always a
very good royalist, and this is really a very old Norman family,
of the district of Caen. There are five centuries of a Raoul de
Faux, Jean de Faux, and Thomas de Faux, who were of the
gentry, one of whom was a lord of Rochefort. The last was
Guy Etienne Alexandre, who was a cavalry colonel, and held
some rank in the light horse of Brittany. His daughter Marie
Louise married Adrien Charles de Gramont, son of Duke Louis
de Gramont, a peer of France, colonel of the Gardes Frangaises,
and lieutenant-general of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq,
and Faouq.

" Will you not, my dear madame, ask for us the prayers of
your holy relative, Monsieur le Cardinal ? As to your precious
Sylvanie, she has done well not to waste the short time that
she is with you in writing to me. She is well, you say; studies
according to your wishes, and loves me still. That is all I could
desire. Her remembrance, through you, reached me, and I was
glad to receive it. My health is tolerably good; still I grow
thinner every day.

"Farewell: my paper is filled and I must stop. With a
thousand good wishes,

" BAPTISTINE.

" P.S. — Your little nephew is charming; do you remember
that he will soon be five years old ? He saw a horse pass yester-
day on which they had put knee-caps, and he cried out: ' What

Fantine 35

is that he has got on his knees ? ' The child is so pretty. His
little brother drags an old broom about the room for a carriage,
and says, hi ! "

As this letter shows, these two women knew how to conform
to the bishop's mode of life, with that woman's tact which
understands a man better than he can comprehend himself.

Beneath the gentle and frank manner of the Bishop of D ,

which never changed, he sometimes performed great, daring,
even grand acts, without seeming to be aware of it himself.
They trembled, but did not interfere. Sometimes Madame
Magloire would venture a remonstrance beforehand: never at
the time, or afterwards; no one ever disturbed him by word
or token in an action once begun. At certain times, when he
had no need to say it, when, perhaps, he was hardly conscious
of it, so complete was his artlessness, they vaguely felt that he
was acting as bishop, and at such periods they were only two
shadows in the house. They waited on him passively, and if
to obey was to disappear, they disappeared. With charming
and instinctive delicacy they knew that obtrusive attentions
would annoy him; so even when they thought him in danger
they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature rather,
to the degree of ceasing to watch over him. They entrusted
him to God's keeping.

Besides, Baptistine said, as we have seen, that his death
would be hers. Madame Magloire did not say so, but she
knew it.

THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT

A LITTLE while before the date of the letter quoted in the
preceding pages, the bishop performed an act, which the whole
town thought far more perilous than his excursion across the
mountains infested by the bandits.

In the country near D , there was a man who lived alone.

This man, to state the startling fact without preface, had been
a member of the National Convention. His name was G .

The little circle of D spoke of the conventionist with a

certain sort of horror. A conventionist, think of it; that was
in the time when folks thee-and-thoued one another, and said
"citizen." This man came very near being a monster; he had

36 Les Miserables

not exactly voted for the execution of the king, but almost; he
was half a regicide, and had been a terrible creature altogether.
How was it, then, on the return of the legitimate princes, that
they had not arraigned this man before the provost court?
He would not have been beheaded, perhaps, but even if clemency
were necessary he might have been banished for life; in fact,
an example, etc. etc. Besides, he was an atheist, as all those
people are. Babblings of geese against a vulture !

But was this G a vulture ? Yes, if one should judge him

by the savageness of his solitude. As he had not voted for the
king's execution, he was not included in the sentence of exile,
and could remain in France.

He lived about an hour's walk from the town, far from any
hamlet or road, in a secluded ravine of a very wild valley. It
was said he had a sort of resting-place there, a hole, a den.
He had no neighbours or even passers-by. Since he had lived
there the path which led to the place had become overgrown,
and people spoke of it as of the house of a hangman.

From time to time, however, the bishop reflectingly gazed
upon the horizon at the spot where a clump of trees indicated
the ravine of the aged conventionist, and he would say: " There
lives a soul which is alone." And in the depths of his thought
he would add, " I owe him a visit."

But this idea, we must confess, though it appeared natural
at first, yet, after a few moments' reflection, seemed strange, im-
practicable, and almost repulsive. For at heart he shared the
general impression, and the conventionist inspired him, he knew
not how, with that sentiment which is the fringe of hatred,
and which the word " aversion " so well expresses.

However, the shepherd should not recoil from the diseased
sheep. Ah ! but what a sheep !

The good bishop was perplexed: sometimes he walked in
that direction, but he returned.

At last, one day the news was circulated in the town

that the young herdsboy who served the conventionist G

in his retreat, had come for a doctor; that the old wretch was
dying, that he was motionless, and could not live through the
night. " Thank God ! " added many.

The bishop took his cane, put on his overcoat, because his
cassock was badly worn, as we have said, and besides the night
wind was evidently rising, and set out.

The sun was setting; it had nearly touched the horizon when
the bishop reached the accursed spot. He felt a certain quicken-

Fantine 37

ing of the pulse as he drew near the den. He jumped over a
ditch, cleared a hedge, made his way through a brush fence,
found himself in a dilapidated garden, and after a bold advance
across the open ground, suddenly, behind some high brushwood,
he discovered the retreat.

It was a low, poverty-stricken hut, small and clean, with a
little vine nailed up in front.

Before the door in an old chair on rollers, there sat a man with
white hair, looking with smiling gaze upon the setting sun.

The young herdsboy stood near him, handing him a bowl of
milk.

While the bishop was looking, the old man raised his voice.

" Thank you," he said, " I shall need nothing more; " and his
smile changed from the sun to rest upon the boy.

The bishop stepped forward. At the sound of his footsteps
the old man turned his head, and his face expressed as much
surprise as one can feel after a long life.

" This is the first time since I have lived here," said he, " that
I have had a visitor. Who are you, monsieur? "

" My name is Bienvenu-Myriel," the bishop replied.

" Bienvenu-Myriel ? I have heard that name before. Are
you he whom the people call Monseigneur Bienvenu? "

" I am."

The old man continued half-smiling. " Then you are my
bishop ? "

" Possibly."

" Come in, monsieur."

The conventionist extended his hand to the bishop, but he
did not take it. He only said:

" I am glad to find that I have been misinformed. You do
not appear to me very ill."

" Monsieur," replied the old man, " I shall soon be better."

He paused and said:

" I shall be dead in three hours."

Then he continued :

" I am something of a physician; I know the steps by which
death approaches; yesterday my feet only were cold; to-day
the cold has crept to my knees, now it has reached the waist;
when it touches the heart, all will be over. The sunset is lovely,
is it not ? I had myself wheeled out to get a final look at nature.
You can speak to me; that will not tire me. You do well to
come to see a man who is dying. It is good that these moments
should have witnesses. Every one has his fancy ; I should like

38 Les Miserables

to live until the dawn, but I know I have scarcely life for three
hours. It will be night, but what matters it: to finish is a
very simple thing. One does not need morning for that. Be it
so: I shall die in the starlight."

The old man turned towards the herdsboy :

" Little one, go to bed : thou didst watch the other night : thou
art weary."

The child went into the hut.

The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as if
speaking to himself : " While he is sleeping, I shall die : the two
slumbers keep fit company."

The bishop was not as much affected as he might have been:
it was not his idea of godly death; we must tell all, for the little
inconsistencies of great souls should be mentioned ; he who had
laughed so heartily at " His Highness," was still slightly shocked
at not being called monseigneur, and was almost tempted to
answer " citizen." He felt a desire to use the brusque familiarity
common enough with doctors and priests, but which was not
customary with him.

This conventionist after all, this representative of the people,
had been a power on the earth; and perhaps for the first time
in his life the bishop felt himself in a humour to be severe. The
conventionist, however, treated him with a modest consideration
and cordiality, in which perhaps might have been discerned
that humility which is befitting to one so nearly dust unto dust.

The bishop, on his part, although he generally kept himself
free from curiosity, which to his idea was almost offensive, could
not avoid examining the conventionist with an attention for
which, as it had not its source in sympathy, his conscience would
have condemned him as to any other man ; but a conventionist
he looked upon as an outlaw, even to the law of charity.

G , with his self-possessed manner, erect figure, and

vibrating voice, was one of those noble octogenarians who are
the marvel of the physiologist. The revolution produced many
of these men equal to the epoch : one felt that here was a tested
man. Though so near death, he preserved all the appearance
of health. His bright glances, his firm accent, and the muscular
movements of his shoulders seemed almost sufficient to dis-
concert death. Azrael, the Mahometan angel of the sepulchre,
would have turned back, thinking he had mistaken the door.

G appeared to be dying because he wished to die. There

was freedom in his agony; his legs only were paralysed; his
feet were cold and dead, but his head lived in full power of life

Fantinc 39

and light. At this solemn moment G seemed like the king

in the oriental tale, flesh above and marble below. The bishop
seated himself upon a stone near by. The beginning of their
conversation was ex abrupto :

" I congratulate you," he said, in a tone of reprimand. " At
least you did not vote for the execution of the king."

The conventionist did not seem to notice the bitter emphasis
placed upon the words " at least." The smiles vanished from
his face, and he replied :

" Do not congratulate me too much, monsieur; I did vote
for the destruction of the tyrant."

And the tone of austerity confronted the tone of severity.

" What do you mean? " asked the bishop.

" I mean that man has a tyrant, Ignorance. I voted for the
abolition of that tyrant. That tyrant has begotten royalty,
which is authority springing from the False, while science is
authority springing from the True. Man should be governed
by science."

" And conscience," added the bishop.

" The same thing: conscience is innate knowledge that we
have."

Monsieur Bienvenu listened with some amazement to this
language, novel as it was to him.

The conventionist went on:

" As to Louis XVI.: I said no. I do not believe that I have
the right to kill a man, but I feel it a duty to exterminate evil.
I voted for the downfall of the tyrant; that is to say, for the
abolition of prostitution for woman, of slavery for man, of night
for the child. In voting for the republic I voted for that: I
voted for fraternity, for harmony, for light. I assisted in casting
down prejudices and errors: their downfall brings light! We
caused the old world to fall; the old world, a vase of misery,
reversed, becomes an urn of joy to the human race."

" Joy alloyed," said the bishop.

" You might say joy troubled, and, at present, after this fatal
return of the blast which we call 1814, joy disappeared. Alas I
the work was imperfect I admit; we demolished the ancient
order of things physically, but not entirely in the idea. To
destroy abuses is not enough; habits must be changed. The
windmill has gone, but the wind is there yet."

" You have demolished. To demolish may be useful, but I
distrust a demolition effected in anger ! "

" Justice has its anger, Monsieur Bishop, and the wrath of

4-O Les Miserables

justice is an element of progress. Whatever may be said matters
not, the French revolution is the greatest step in advance taken
by mankind since the advent of Christ; incomplete it may be,
but it is sublime. It loosened all the secret bonds of society,
it softened all hearts, it calmed, appeased, enlightened; it
made the waves of civilisation to flow over the earth; it was
good. The French revolution is the consecration of humanity."

The bishop could not help murmuring: " Yes, '93! "

The conventionist raised himself in his chair with a solemnity
well nigh mournful, and as well as a dying person could exclaim,
he exclaimed:

" Ah 1 you are there ! '93 ! I was expecting that. A cloud
had been forming for fifteen hundred years ; at the end of fifteen
centuries it burst. You condemn the thunderbolt."

Without perhaps acknowledging it to himself, the bishop felt
that he had been touched; however, he made the best of it, and
replied :

" The judge speaks in the name of justice, the priest in the
name of pity, which is only a more exalted justice. A thunder-
bolt should not be mistaken."

And he added, looking fixedly at the conventionist; " Louis
XVII.?"

The conventionist stretched out his hand and seized the
bishop's arm.

" Louis XVII. Let us see! For whom do you weep? — for
the innocent child? It is well; I weep with you. For the
royal child? I ask time to reflect. To my view the brother
of Cartouche, an innocent child, hung by a rope under his arms
in the Place de Greve till he died, for the sole crime of being the
brother of Cartouche, is no less sad sight than the grandson of
Louis XV., an innocent child, murdered in the tower of the
Temple for the sole crime of being the grandson of Louis XV."

" Monsieur," said the bishop, " I dislike this coupling of
names."

" Cartouche or Louis XV. ; for which are you concerned ? "

There was a moment of silence; the bishop regretted almost
that he had come, and yet he felt strangely and inexplicably
moved.

The conventionist resumed: "Oh, Monsieur Priest! you do
not love the harshness of the truth, but Christ loved it. He
took a scourge and purged the temple; his flashing whip was
a rude speaker of truths; when he said " Sinite parvulos" he
made no distinctions among the little ones. He was not pained

Fantine 41

at coupling the dauphin of Barabbas with the dauphin of Herod<
Monsieur, innocence is its own crown! Innocence has only to
act to be noble ! She is as august in rags as in the fleur de lys."

" That is true," said the bishop, in a low tone.

" I repeat," continued the old man; " you have mentioned
Louis XVII. Let us weep together for all the innocent, for all
the martyrs, for all the children, for the low as well as for the
high. I am one of them, but then, as I have told you, we must
go further back than '93, and our tears must begin before Louis
XVII. I will weep for the children of kings with you, if you
will weep with me for the little ones of the people."

" I weep for all," said the bishop.

" Equally," exclaimed G , " and if the balance inclines,

let it be on the side of the people; they have suffered longer."

There was silence again, broken at last by the old man. He
raised himself upon one elbow, took a pinch of his cheek between
his thumb and his bent forefinger, as one does mechanically in
questioning and forming an opinion, and addressed the bishop
with a look full of all the energies of agony. It was almost an
anathema.

" Yes, Monsieur, it is for a long time that the people have been
suffering, and then, sir, that is not all; why do you come to
question me and to speak to me of Louis XVII. ? I do not know
you. Since I have been in this region I have lived within these
walls alone, never passing beyond them, seeing none but this
child who helps me. Your name, has, it is true, reached me
confusedly, and I must say not very indistinctly, but that
matters not. Adroit men have so many ways of imposing upon
this good simple people. For instance I did not hear the sound
of your carriage. You left it doubtless behind the thicket, down
there at the branching of the road. You have told me that you
were the bishop, but that tells me nothing about your moral
personality. Now, then, I repeat my question — Who are you?
You are a bishop, a prince of the church, one of those men who
are covered with gold, with insignia, and with wealth, who have

fat livings — the see of D , fifteen thousand francs regular,

ten thousand francs contingent, total twenty-five thousand
francs — who have kitchens, who have retinues, who give good
dinners, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about in your
gaudy coach, like peacocks, with lackeys before and lackeys
behind, and who have palaces, and who roll in your carriages
in the name of Jesus Christ who went bare-footed. You are
a prelate; rents, palaces, horses, valets, a good table, all the

42 Les Miserables

sensualities of life, you have these, like all the rest, and you
enjoy them like all the rest; very well, but that says too much
or not enough; that does not enlighten me as to your intrinsic
worth, that which is peculiar to yourself, you who come probably
with the claim of bringing me wisdom. To whom am I speaking ?
Who are you ? "

The bishop bowed his head and replied, " Vermis sum."

" A worm of the earth in a carriage! " grumbled the old man.

It was the turn of the conventionist to be haughty, and of the
bishop to be humble.

The bishop replied with mildness :

" Monsieur, be it so. But explain to me how my carriage,
which is there a few steps behind the trees, how my good table
and the moor-fowl that I eat on Friday, how my twenty-five
thousand livres of income, how my palace and my lackeys
prove that pity is not a virtue, that kindness is not a duty, and
that '93 was not inexorable? "

The old man passed his hand across his forehead as if to dispel
a cloud.

" Before answering you," said he, " I beg your pardon. I
have done wrong, monsieur; you are in my house, you are my
guest. I owe you courtesy. You are discussing my ideas;
it is fitting that I confine myself to combating your reasoning.
Your riches and your enjoyments are advantages that I have
over you in the debate, but it is not in good taste to avail myself
of them. I promise you to use them no more."

" I thank you," said the bishop.

G went on :

" Let us get back to the explanation that you asked of me.
Where were we? What were you saying to me? that '93 was
inexorable? "

" Inexorable, yes," said the bishop. " What do you think
of Marat clapping his hands at the guillotine ? "

" What do you think of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over
the dragonnades? "

The answer was severe, but it reached its aim with the keen-
ness of a dagger. The bishop was staggered, no reply presented
itself; but it shocked him to hear Bossuet spoken of in that
manner. The best men have their fetishes, and sometimes they
feel almost crushed at the little respect that logic shows
them.

The conventionist began to gasp; the agonising asthma,
which mingles with the latest breath, made his voice broken;

Fantine 43

nevertheless, his soul yet appeared perfectly lucid in his eyes.
He continued:

" Let us have a few more words here and there — I would like
it. Outside of the revolution which, taken as a whole, is an
immense human affirmation, '93, alas! is a reply. You think
it inexorable, but the whole monarchy, monsieur? Carrier is
a bandit; but what name do you give to Montrevel ? Fouquier-
Tainville is a wretch; but what is your opinion of Lamoignon
Baville ? Maillard is frightful, but Saulx Tavannes, if you please ?
Le pere Duchene is ferocious, but what epithet will you furnish
me for Le p&re Letellier ? Jourdan-Coupe-Tete is a monster, but
less than the Marquis of Louvois. Monsieur, monsieur, I lament
Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen, but I lament also that
poor Huguenot woman who, in 1685, under Louis le Grand,
monsieur, while nursing her child, was stripped to the waist
and tied to a post, while her child was held before her; her
breast swelled with milk, and her heart with anguish; the little
one, weak and famished, seeing the breast, cried with agony;
and the executioner said to the woman, to the nursing mother,
' Recant ! ' giving her the choice between the death of her child
and the death of her conscience. What say you to this Tantalus
torture adapted to a mother? Monsieur, forget not this; the
French revolution had its reasons. Its wrath will be pardoned
by the future; its result is a better world. From its most
terrible blows comes a caress for the human race. I must be
brief. I must stop. I have too good a cause ; and I am dying."

And, ceasing to look at the bishop, the old man completed his
idea in these few tranquil words:

" Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When
they are over, this is recognised : that the human race has been
harshly treated, but that it has advanced."

The conventionist thought that he had borne down succes-
sively one after the other all the interior intrenchments of the
bishop. There was one left, however, and from this, the last
resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu's resistance, came forth these
words, in which nearly all the rudeness of the exordium re-
appeared.

" Progress ought to believe in God. The good cannot have
an impious servitor. An atheist is an evil leader of the human
race."

The old representative of the people did not answer. He
was trembling. He looked up into the sky, and a tear gathered
slowly in his eye. When the lid was full, the tear rolled down

44 Les Miserables

his livid cheek, and he said, almost stammering, low, and talking
to himself, his eye lost in the depths:

" O thou 1 0 ideal ! thou alone dost exist ! "

The bishop felt a kind of inexpressible emotion.

After brief silence, the old man raised his finger towards
heaven, and said:

"The infinite exists. It is there. If the infinite had no
me, the me would be its limit; it would not be the infinite; in
other words, it would not be. But it is. Then it has a me.
This me of the infinite is God."

The dying man pronounced these last words in a loud voice,
and with a shudder of ecstasy, as if he saw some one. When
he ceased, his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It
was evident that he had lived through in one minute the few
hours that remained to him. What he had said had brought
him near to him who is in death. The last moment was at hand.

The bishop perceived it, time was pressing. He had come
as a priest; from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees
to extreme emotion; he looked upon those closed eyes, he took
that old, wrinkled, and icy hand, and drew closer to the dying
man.

" This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think it would
be a source of regret, if we should have met in vain? "

The conventionist re-opened his eyes. Calmness was im-
printed upon his face, where there had been a cloud.

" Monsieur Bishop," s^id he, with a deliberation which perhaps
came still more from the dignity of his soul than from the ebb
of his strength, " I have passed my life in meditation, study,
and contemplation. I was sixty years old when my country
called me, and ordered me to take part in her affairs. I obeyed.
There were abuses, I fought them; there were tyrannies, I
destroyed them; there were rights and principles, I proclaimed
and confessed them. The soil was invaded, I defended it;
France was threatened, I offered her my breast. I was not
rich; I am poor. I was one of the masters of the state, the
vaults of the bank were piled with specie, so that we had to
strengthen the walls or they would have fallen under the weight
of gold and of silver; I dined in the Rue de 1'Arbre-Sec at twenty-
two sous for the meal. I succoured the oppressed, I solaced the
suffering. True, I tore the drapery from the altar; but it was
to staunch the wounds of the country. I have always supported
the forward march of the human race towards the light, and I
have sometimes resisted a progress which was without pity.

Fantine 45

I have, on occasion, protected my own adversaries, your friends.
There is at Peteghem in Flanders, at the very place where the
Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a monastery of
Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire in Beaulieu, which I
saved in 1793; I have done my duty according to my strength,
and the good that I could. After which I was hunted, hounded,
pursued, persecuted, slandered, railed at, spit upon, cursed,
proscribed. For many years now, with my white hairs, I have
perceived that many people believed they had a right to despise
me; to the poor, ignorant crowd I have the face of the damned,
and I accept, hating no man myself, the isolation of hatred.
Now I am eighty-six years old ; I am about to die. What have
you come to ask of me? "

" Your benediction," said the bishop. And he fell upon his
knees.

When the bishop raised his head, the face of the old man had
become august. He had expired.

The bishop went home deeply absorbed in thought. He spent
the whole night in prayer. The next day, some persons, em-
boldened by curiosity, tried to talk with him of the conventionist
G ; he merely pointed to Heaven.

From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly
love for the weak and the suffering.

Every allusion to " that old scoundrel G ," threw him into

a strange reverie. No one could say that the passage of that
soul before his own, and the reflex of that grand conscience upon
his own had not had its effect upon his approach to perfection.

This " pastoral visit " was of course an occasion for criticism
by the little local coteries of the place.

" Was the bed-side of such a man as that the place for a
bishop? Of course he could expect no conversion there. All
these revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there?
What had he been there to see? He must have been very
curious to see a soul carried away by the devil."

One day a dowager, of that impertinent variety who think
themselves witty, addressed this sally to him. " Monseigneur,
people ask when your Grandeur will have the red bonnet."
" Oh ! ho ! that is a high colour," replied the bishop. " Luckily
those who despise it in a bonnet, venerate it in a hat,"

46 Les Miserables

A QUALIFICATION

WE should be very much deceived if we supposed from this
that Monseigneur Bienvenu was " a philosopher bishop," or
" a patriot cure." His meeting, which we might almost call

his communion with the conventionist G , left him in a

state of astonishment which rendered him still more charitable ;
that was all.

Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was anything but a politician,
we ought here perhaps to point out very briefly his position
in relation to the events of the day, if we may suppose that
Monseigneur Bienvenu ever thought of having a position.

For this we must go back a few years.

Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopacy,
the emperor made him a baron of the empire, at the same time
with several other bishops. The arrest of the pope took place,
as we know, on the night of the 5th of July, 1809; on that
occasion, M. Myriel was called by Napoleon to the synod of
the bishops of France and Italy, convoked at Paris. This
synod was held at Notre Dame, and commenced its sessions
on the i5th of June, 1811, under the presidency of Cardinal
Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninety-five bishops who were
present. But he attended only one sitting, and three or four
private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so
near to nature, in rusticity and privation, he seemed to bring
among these eminent personages ideas that changed the tem-
perature of the synod. He returned very soon to D .

When asked about this sudden return, he answered : " / annoyed
them. The jree air went in with me. I had the effect of an open
door."

Another time, he said : " What would you have 1 Those
prelates are princes. 1 am only a poor peasant bishop."

The fact is, that he was disliked. Among other strange
things, he had dropped the remark one evening when he
happened to be at the house of one of his colleagues of the
highest rank: "What fine clocks! fine carpets! fine liveries!
This must be very uncomfortable. Oh ! how unwilling I should
be to have all these superfluities crying for ever in my ears:
' There are people who hunger ! there are people who are cold I
there are poor ! there are poor ! ' '

We must say, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not

Fantine 47

an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of the arts. Never-
theless, among churchmen, beyond their rites and ceremonies,
luxury is a crime. It seems to disclose habits which are not
truly charitable. A wealthy priest is a contradiction. He
ought to keep himself near the poor. But, who can be in
contact continually, by night as well as day, with all distresses,
all misfortunes, all privations, without taking upon himself
a little of that holy poverty, like the dust of a journey? Can
you imagine a man near a fire, who does not feel warm? Can
you imagine a labourer working constantly at a furnace, who
has not a hair burned, nor a nail blackened, nor a drop of sweat,
nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first proof of charity in
a priest, and especially a bishop, is poverty.

That is doubtless the view which the Bishop of D took

of it.

It must not be thought, however, that he took part in the
delicate matters which would be called " the ideas of the age."
He had little to do with the theological quarrels of the moment,
and kept his peace on questions where the church and the state
were compromised; but if he had been pressed, he would have
been found rather Ultramontane than Gallican. As we are
drawing a portrait, and can make no concealment, we are com-
pelled to add that he was very cool towards Napoleon in the
decline of his power. After 1813, he acquiesced in, or applauded
all the hostile manifestations. He refused to see him as he
passed on his return from the island of Elba, and declined to
order in his diocese public prayers for the emperor during the
Hundred Days.

Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two
brothers; one, a general, the other, a prefect. He wrote
occasionally to both. He felt a coolness towards the first,
because, being in a command in Provence, at the time of the
landing at Cannes, the general placed himself at the head of
twelve hundred men, and pursued the emperor as if he wished
to let him escape. His correspondence was more affectionate
with the other brother, the ex-prefect, a brave and worthy man,
who lived in retirement at Paris, in the Rue Cassette.

Even Monseigneur Bienvenu then had his hour of party spirit,
his hour of bitterness, his clouds. The shadow of the passions
of the moment passed over this great and gentle spirit in its
occupation with eternal things. Certainly, such a man deserved
to escape political opinions. Let no one misunderstand our
idea; we do not confound what are called " political opinions "

48 Les Miserables

with that grand aspiration after progress, with that sublime
patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days,
should be the very foundation of all generous intelligence.
Without entering into questions which have only an indirect
bearing upon the subject of this book, we simply say: it would
have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a royalist,
and if his eyes had never been turned for a single instant from
that serene contemplation where, steadily shining, above the
fictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy ebb
and flow of human affairs, are seen those three pure luminaries,
Truth, Justice, and Charity.

Although we hold that it was not for a political function that
God created Monseigneur Bienvenu, we could have understood
and admired a protest in the name of right and liberty, a fierce
opposition, a perilous and just resistance to Napoleon when he
was all-powerful. But what is pleasing to us towards those
who are rising, is less pleasing towards those who are falling.
We do not admire the combat when there is no danger;
and in any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone
the right to be the exterminators in the last. He who has not
been a determined accuser during prosperity, ought to hold his
peace in the presence of adversity. He only who denounces
the success at one time had a right to proclaim the justice of
the downfall. As for ourselves, when providence intervened
and struck the blow, we took no part; 1812 began to disarm
us. In 1813, the cowardly breach of silence on the part of
that taciturn Corps Legislatif, emboldened by catastrophe, was
worthy only of indignation, and it was base to applaud it;
in 1814, from those traitorous marshals, from that senate passing
from one baseness to another, insulting where they had deified,
from that idolatry recoiling and spitting upon its idol, it was a
duty to turn away in disgust; in 1815, when the air was filled
with the final disasters, when France felt the thrill of their
sinister approach, when Waterloo could already be dimly per-
ceived opening before Napoleon, the sorrowful acclamations
of the army and of the people to the condemned of destiny,
were no subjects for laughter; and making every reservation

as to the despot, a heart like that of the Bishop of D ought

not perhaps to have refused to see what was august and touching,
on the brink of the abyss, in the last embrace of a great nation
and a great man.

To conclude: he was always and in everything just, true,
equitable, intelligent, humble, and worthy, beneficent, and

Fantine 49

benevolent, which is another beneficence. He was a priest,
a sage, and a man. We must say even that in those political
opinions which we have been criticising, and which we are
disposed to judge almost severely, he was tolerant and yielding,
perhaps more than we, who now speak. The doorkeeper of the
City Hall had been placed there by the emperor. He was an
old subaltern officer of the Old Guard, a legionary of Austerlitz,
and as staunch a Bonapartist as the eagle. This poor fellow
sometimes thoughtlessly allowed words to escape him which the
law at that time defined as seditious matters. Since the profile
of the emperor had disappeared from the Legion of Honour,
he had never worn his badge, as he said, that he might not be
compelled to bear his cross. In his devotion he had himself
removed the imperial effigy from the cross that Napoleon had
given him ; it left a hole, and he would put nothing in its place.
" Better die," said he, " than wear the three toads over my heart."
He was always railing loudly at Louis XVIII. " Old gouty- foot
with his English spatterdashes I " he would say, " let him go to
Prussia with his goafs-beard" happy to unite in the same im-
precation the two things that he most detested, Prussia and
England. He said so much that he lost his place. There he
was without bread, and in the street with his wife and children.
The bishop sent for him, scolded him a little, and made him
doorkeeper in the cathedral.

In nine years, by dint of holy works and gentle manners,

Monseigneur Bienvenu had filled the City of D with a kind

of tender and filial veneration. Even his conduct towards
Napoleon had been accepted and pardoned in silence by the
people, a good, weak flock, who adored their emperor, but who
loved their bishop.

XII

SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU

THERE is almost always a squad of young abbes about a bishop
as there is a flock of young officers about a general. They are
what the charming St. Francis de Sales somewhere calls " white-
billed priests." Every profession has its aspirants who make
up the cortege of those who are at the summit. No power is
without its worshippers, no fortune without its court. The
seekers of the future revolve about the splendid present. Every
capital, like every general, has its staff. Every bishop of influ-

50 Les Miserables

ence has his patrol of under-graduates, cherubs who go the
rounds and keep order in the episcopal palace, and who mount
guard over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop is a foot
in the stirrup for a sub-deacon. One must make his own way ;
the apostolate never disdains the canonicate.

And as there are elsewhere rich coronets so there are in the
church rich mitres. There are bishops who stand well at court,
rich, well endowed, adroit, accepted of the world, knowing how
to pray, doubtless, but knowing also how to ask favours ; making
themselves without scruple the viaduct of advancement for a
whole diocese; bonds of union between the sacristy and diplo-
macy; rather abbes than priests, prelates rather than bishops.
Lucky are they who can get near them. Men of influence as
they are, they rain about them, upon their families and
favourites, and upon all of these young men who please them,
fat parishes, livings, archdeaconates, almonries, and cathedral
functions — steps towards episcopal dignities. In advancing
themselves they advance their satellites; it is a whole solar
system in motion. The rays of their glory empurple their suite.
Their prosperity scatters its crumbs to those who are behind the
scenes, in the shape of nice little promotions. The larger the
diocese of the patron, the larger the curacy for the favourite.
And then there is Rome. A bishop who can become an arch-
bishop, an archbishop who can become a cardinal, leads you tc
the conclave; you enter into the rota, you have the pallium,
you are auditor, you are chamberlain, you are monseigneur,
and from grandeur to eminence there is only a step, and between
eminence and holiness there is nothing but the whiff of a ballot.
Every cowl may dream of the tiara. The priest is, in our days,
the only man who can regularly become a king; and what a
king ! the supreme king. So, what a nursery of aspirations is
a seminary. How many blushing chorus boys, how many
young abbes, have the ambitious dairymaid's pail of milk on
their heads! Who knows how easily ambition disguises itself
under the name of a calling, possibly in good faith, and deceiving
itself, saint that it is !

Monseigneur Bienvenu, an humble, poor, private person, was
not counted among the rich mitres. This was plain from the
entire absence of young priests about him. We have seen that
at Paris " he did not take." No glorious future dreamed of
alighting upon this solitary old man. No young ambition was
foolish enough to ripen in his shadow. His canons and his
grand-vicars were good old men, rather common like himself,

Fantine 5 1

and like him immured in that diocese, from which there was no
road to promotion, and they resembled their bishop, with this
difference, that they were finished, and he was perfected. The
impossibility of getting on under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so
plain, that as soon as they were out of the seminary, the young
men ordained by him procured recommendations to the Arch-
bishop of Aix or of Auch, and went immediately to present them.
For, we repeat, men like advancement. A saint who is addicted
to abnegation is a dangerous neighbour; he is very likely to
communicate to you by contagion an incurable poverty, an
anchylosis of the articulations necessary to advancement,
and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and rflen
flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Mon-
seigneur Bienvenu. We live in a sad society. Succeed; that
is the advice which falls drop by drop, from the overhanging
corruption.

We may say, by the way, that success is a hideous thing. Its
counterfeit of merit deceives men. To the mass, success has
almost the same appearance as supremacy. Success, that pre-
tender to talent, has a dupe — history. Juvenal and Tacitus only
reject it. In our days, a philosophy which is almost an official
has entered into its service, wears its livery, and waits in its
antechamber. Success; that is the theory. Prosperity sup-
poses capacity. Win in the lottery, and you are an able man.
The victor is venerated. To be born with a caul is everything.
Have but luck, and you will have the rest; be fortunate, and
you will be thought great. Beyond the five or six great excep-
tions, which are the wonder of their age, contemporary admira-
tion is nothing but shortsightedness. Gilt is gold. To be a
chance comer is no drawback, provided you have improved your
chances. The common herd is an old Narcissus, who adores
himself, and who applauds the common. That mighty genius,
by which one becomes a Moses, an ^Eschylus, a Dante, a Michael
Angelo, or a Napoleon, the multitude assigns at once and by
acclamation to whoever succeeds in his object, whatever it may
be. Let a notary rise to be a deputy; let a sham Corneille
write Tiridate ; let a eunuch come into the possession of a harem ;
let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle
of an epoch ; let an apothecary invent pasteboard soles for army
shoes, and lay up, by selling this pasteboard instead of leather for
the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, four hundred thousand livres
in the funds ; let a pack-pedlar espouse usury and bring her to
bed of seven or eight millions, of which he is the father and she

52 Les Miserables

the mother; let a preacher become a bishop by talking through
his nose; let the steward of a good house become so rich on
leaving service that he is made Minister of Finance ; — men call
that Genius, just as they call the face of Mousqueton, Beauty,
and the bearing of Claude, Majesty. They confound the radiance
of the stars of heaven with the radiations which a duck's foot
leaves in the mud.

XIII

. WHAT HE BELIEVED

WE need not examine the Bishop of D from an orthodox

point of view. Before such a soul, we feel only in the humour
of respect. The conscience of an upright man should be taken
for granted. Moreover, given certain natures, and we admit
the possible development of all the beauties of human virtues
in a faith different from our own.

What he thought of this dogma or that mystery, are secrets of
the interior faith known only in the tomb where souls enter
stripped of all externals. But we are sure that religious diffi-
culties never resulted with him in hypocrisy. No corruption is
possible with the diamond. He believed as much as he could.
Credo in Pair em, he often exclaimed; and, besides, he derived
from his good deeds that measure of satisfaction which meets
the demands of conscience, and which says in a low voice, " thou
art with God."

We think it our duty to notice that, outside of and, so to say,
beyond his faith, the bishop had an excess of love. It is on
that account, quia multum amavit, that he was deemed vulner-
able by " serious men," " sober persons," and " reasonable
people ; " favourite phrases in our sad world, where egotism
receives its key-note from pedantry. What was this excess
of love ? It was a serene benevolence, overflowing men, as we
have already indicated, and, on occasion, extending to inanimate
things. He lived without disdain. He was indulgent to God's
creation. Every man, even the best, has some inconsiderate
severity which he holds in reserve for animals. The Bishop of

D had none of this severity peculiar to most priests. He

did not go as far as the Brahmin, but he appeared to have
pondered over these words of Ecclesiastes : " who knows whither
goeth the spirit of the beast ? " Ugliness of aspect, monstrosi-
ties of instinct, did not trouble or irritate him. He was moved

Fantine 53

and afflicted by it. He seemed to be thoughtfully seeking,
beyond the apparent life, for its cause, its explanation, or its
excuse. He seemed at times to ask changes of God. He
examined without passion, and with the eye of a linguist
decyphering a palimpsest, the portion of chaos which there is
yet in nature. These reveries sometimes drew from him strange
words. One morning, he was in his garden, and thought him-
self alone; but his sister was walking behind him; all at once
he stopped and looked at something on the ground: it was a
large, black, hairy, horrible spider. His sister heard him say :

" Poor thing ! it is not his fault."

Why not relate this almost divine childlikeness of goodness ?
Puerilities, perhaps, but these sublime puerilities were those of
St. Francis of Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he
received a sprain rather than crush an ant.

So lived this upright man. Sometimes he went to sleep in
his garden, and then there was nothing more venerable.

Monseigneur Bienvenu had been formerly, according to
the accounts of his youth and even of his early manhood, a
passionate, perhaps a violent, man. His universal tender-
ness was less an instinct of nature than the result of a strong
conviction filtered through life into his heart, slowly dropping
in upon him, thought by thought; for a character, as well as a
rock, may be worn into by drops of water. Such marks are
ineffaceable; such formations are indestructible.

In 1815, we think we have already said, he attained his
seventy -sixth year, but he did not appear to be more than sixty.
He was not tall ; he was somewhat fleshy, and frequently took
long walks that he might not become more so; he had a firm
step, and was but little bowed ; a circumstance from which we
do not claim to draw any conclusion. — Gregory XVI., at eighty
years, was erect and smiling, which did not prevent him from
being a bad bishop. Monseigneur Bienvenu had what people
call " a fine head," but so benevolent that you forgot that it
was fine.

When he talked with that infantile gaiety that was one of
his graces, and of which we have already spoken, all felt at ease
in his presence, and from his whole person joy seemed to radiate.
His ruddy and fresh complexion, and his white teeth, all of which
were well preserved, and which he showed when he laughed, gave
him that open and easy air which makes us say of a man : he is
a good fellow; and of an old man : he is a good man. This was,
we remember, the effect he produced on Napoleon. At the first

54 Les Miserables

view, and to one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing
more than a good man. But if one spent a few hours with him,
and saw him in a thoughtful mood, little by little the goodman
became transfigured, and became ineffably imposing; his large
and serious forehead, rendered noble by his white hair, became
noble also by meditation; majesty was developed from this
goodness, yet the radiance of goodness remained; and one felt
something of the emotion that he would experience in seeing a
smiling angel slowly spread his wings without ceasing to smile.
Respect, unutterable respect, penetrated you by degrees, and
made its way to your heart; and you felt that you had before
you one of those strong, tried, and indulgent souls, where the
thought is so great that it cannot be other than gentle.

As we have seen, prayer, celebration of the religious offices,
alms, consoling the afflicted, the cultivation of a little piece of
ground, fraternity, frugality, self-sacrifice, confidence, study,
and work, filled up each day of his life. Filled up is exactly the
word; and in fact, the Bishop's day was full to the brim with
good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Nevertheless it
was not complete if cold or rainy weather prevented his passing
an hour or two in the evening, when the two women had retired,
in his garden before going to sleep. It seemed as if it were a
sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for sleep by meditating
in presence of the great spectacle of the starry firmament.
Sometimes at a late hour of the night, if the two women were
awake, they would hear him slowly promenading the walks.
He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring,
comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the
skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendours of the
constellations, and the invisible splendour of God, opening his
soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such
moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of
night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the centre of
the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the
universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps
have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something
depart from him, and something descend upon him ; mysterious
interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the
universe.

He contemplated the grandeur, and the presence of God ; the
eternity of the future, strange mystery; the eternity of the
past, mystery yet more strange; all the infinities deep-hidden
in every direction about him; and, without essaying to com-

Fantine 55

prehend the incomprehensible, he saw it. He did not study
God; he was dazzled by the thought. He reflected upon these
magnificent unions of atoms which give visible forms to Nature,
revealing forces in establishing them, creating individualities in
unity, proportions in extension, the innumerable in the infinite,
and through light producing beauty. These unions are forming
and dissolving continually; thence life and death.

He would sit upon a wooden bench leaning against a broken
trellis, and look at the stars through the irregular outlines of his
fruit trees. This quarter of an acre of ground, so poorly culti-
vated, so cumbered with shed and ruins, was dear to him, and
satisfied him.

What was more needed by this old man who divided the
leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between
gardening in the day time, and contemplation at night? Was
not this narrow inclosure, with the sky for a background,
enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well
as in his most sublime works ? Indeed, is not that all, and what
more can be desired ? A little garden to walk, and immensity to
reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather;
above his head something to study and meditate upon; a few
flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.

XIV

WHAT HE THOUGHT

A FINAL word.

As these details may, particularly in the times in which we
live, and to use an expression now in fashion, — give the Bishop

of D a certain " pantheistic " physiognomy, and give rise

to the belief, whether to his blame or to his praise, that he had
one of those personal philosophies peculiar to our age, which
sometimes spring up in solitary minds, and gather materials
and grow until they replace religion, we insist upon it that no
one who knew Monseigneur Bienvenu would have felt justified
in any such idea. What enlightened this man was the heart.
His wisdom was formed from the light that came thence.

He had no systems; but many deeds. Abstruse specula-
tions are full of headaches; nothing indicates that he would
risk his mind in mysticisms. The apostle may be bold, but the
bishop should be timid. He would probably have scrupled to

^6 Les Miserables

sound too deeply certain problems, reserved in some sort for
great and terrible minds. There is a sacred horror in the
approaches to mysticism; sombre openings are yawning there,
but something tells you, as you near the brink — enter not.
Woe to him who does!

There are geniuses who, in the fathomless depths of abstrac-
tion and pure speculation — situated, so to say, above all dogmas,
present their ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers
a discussion. Their worship is questioning. This is direct
religion, full of anxiety and of responsibility for him who would
scale its walls.

Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyses
and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by
a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature ; the mysterious
world which surrounds us returns what it receives ; it is probable
that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may
be, there %re men on the earth — if they are nothing more — who
distinctly perceive the heights of the absolute in the horizon of
their contemplation, and who have the terrible vision of the
infinite mountain. Monseigneur Bienvenu was not one of those
men ; Monseigneur Bienvenu was not a genius. He would have
dreaded those sublimities from which some very great men even,
like Swedenborg and Pascal, have glided into insanity. Cer-
tainly, these tremendous reveries have their moral use ; and by
these arduous routes there is an approach to ideal perfection.
But for his part, he took the straight road, which is short — the
Gospel.

He did not attempt to make his robe assume the folds of
Elijah's mantle; he cast no ray of the future upon the dark
scroll of events; he sought not to condense into a flame the
glimmer of things; he had nothing of the prophet and nothing
of the magician. His humble soul loved; that was all.

That he raised his prayer to a superhuman aspiration, is
probable; but one can no more pray too much than love too
much; and, if it was a heresy to pray beyond the written form,
St. Theresa and St. Jerome were heretics.

He inclined towards the distressed and the repentant. The
universe appeared to him like a vast disease; he perceived
fever everywhere, he auscultated suffering everywhere, and,
without essaying to solve the enigma, he endeavoured to staunch
the wound. The formidable spectacle of created things de-
veloped a tenderness in him ; he was always busy in finding for
himself, and inspiring others with the best way of sympathising

Fantine 57

and solacing; the whole world was to this good and rare priest
a permanent subject of sadness seeking to be consoled.

There are men who labour for the extraction of gold; he
worked for the extraction of pity. The misery of the universe
was his mine. Grief everywhere was only an occasion for good
always. Love one another ; he declared that to be complete;
he desired nothing more, and it was his whole doctrine. One
day, this man, who counted himself " a philosopher," this
senator before mentioned, said to the bishop : ' ' See now, what
the world shows ; each fighting against all others; the strongest
man is the best man. Your love one another is a stupidity."
" Well" replied Monseigneur Bienvenu, without discussion, " if
it be a stupidity, the soul ought to shut itself up in it, like the pearl
in the oyster." And he shut himself up in it, he lived in it, he
was satisfied absolutely with it, laying aside the mysterious
questions which attract and which dishearten, the unfathom-
able depths of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics — all
those profundities, to the apostle converging upon God, to the
atheist upon annihilation; destiny, good and evil, the war of
being against being, the conscience of man, the thought-like
dreams of the animal, the transformation of death, the recapitu-
lation of existences contained in the tomb, the incomprehensible
engrafting of successive affections upon the enduring me, the
essence, the substance, the Nothing, and the Something, the
soul, nature, liberty, necessity; difficult problems, sinister
depths, towards which are drawn the gigantic archangels of the
human race; fearful abyss, that Lucretius, Manou, St. Paul,
and Dante contemplate with that flaming eye which seems,
looking steadfastly into the infinite, to enkindle the very stars.

Monsieur Bienvenu was simply a man who accepted these
mysterious questions without examining them, without agi-
tating them, and without troubling his own mind with them;
and who had in his soul a deep respect for the mystery which
enveloped them.

BOOK SECOND— THE FALL

THE NIGHT OF A DAY'S TRAMP

AN hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning
of October, 1815, a man travelling afoot entered the little town

of D . The few persons who at this time were at their

windows or their doors, regarded this traveller with a sort of
distrust. It would have been hard to find a passer-by more
wretched in appearance. He was a man of middle height, stout
and hardy, in the strength of maturity; he might have been
forty-six or seven. A slouched leather cap half hid his face,
bronzed by the sun and wind, and dripping with sweat. His
shaggy breast was seen through the coarse yellow shirt which at
the neck was fastened by a small silver anchor ; he wore a cravat
twisted like a rope; coarse blue trousers, worn and shabby,
white on one knee, and with holes in the other; an old ragged
grey blouse, patched on one side with a piece of green cloth
sewed with twine: upon his back was a well-filled knapsack,
strongly buckled and quite new. In his hand he carried an
enormous knotted stick : his stockingless feet were in hobnailed
shoes; his hair was cropped and his beard long.

The sweat, the heat, his long walk, and the dust, added an
indescribable meanness to his tattered appearance.

His hair was shorn, but bristly, for it had begun to grow a
little, and seemingly had not been cut for some time. Nobody
knew him ; he was evidently a traveller. Whence had he come ?
From the south — perhaps from the sea; for he was making his

entrance into D by the same road by which, seven months

before, the Emperor Napoleon went from Cannes to Paris. This
man must have walked all day long; for he appeared very weary.
Some women of the old city which is at the lower part of the
town, had seen him stop under the trees of the boulevard
Gassendi, and drink at the fountain which is at the end of the
promenade. He must have been very thirsty, for some children
who followed him, saw him stop not two hundred steps further
on and drink again at the fountain in the market-place.

Fantine 59

When he reached the corner of the Rue Poichevert he turned
to the left and went towards the mayor's office. He went in,
and a quarter of an hour afterwards he came out.

The man raised his cap humbly and saluted a gendarme who
was seated near the door, upon the stone bench which General
Drouot mounted on the fourth of March, to read to the terrified
inhabitants of D the proclamation of the Golje Juan.

Without returning his salutation, the gendarme looked at
him attentively, watched him for some distance, and then went
into the city hall.

There was then in D , a good inn called La Croix de Colbas;

its host was named Jacquin Labarre, a man held in some con-
sideration in the town on account of his relationship with
another Labarre, who kept an inn at Grenoble called Trois
Dauphins, and who had served in the Guides. At the time of
the landing of the emperor there had been much noise in the
country about this inn of the Trois Dauphins. It was said that
General Bertrand, disguised as a wagoner, had made frequent
journeys thither in the month of January, and that he had dis-
tributed crosses of honour to the soldiers, and handfuls of
Napoleons to the country-folks. The truth is, that the emperor
when he entered Grenoble, refused to take up his quarters at
the prefecture, saying to the monsieur, after thanking him, " 1
am going to the house of a brave man, with whom I am acquainted,"
and he went to the Trois Dauphins. This glory of Labarre of the
Trois Dauphins was reflected twenty-five miles to Labarre of
the Croix de Colbas. It was a comon saying in the town: " He
is the cousin of the Grenoble man I "

The traveller turned his steps towards this inn, which was the
best in the place, and went at once into the kitchen, which
opened out of the street. All the ranges were fuming, and a
great fire was burning briskly in the chimney-place. Mine host,,
who was at the same time head cook, was going from the fire-
place to the sauce-pans, very busy superintending an excellent
dinner for some wagoners who were laughing and talking noisily
in the next room. Whoever has travelled knows that nobody
lives better than wagoners. A fat marmot, flanked by white
partridges and goose, was turning on a long spit before the fire;
upon the ranges were cooking two large carps from Lake Lauzet,
and a trout from Lake Alloz.

The host, hearing the door open, and a new-comer enter, said,,
without raising his eyes from his ranges —

" What will monsieur have? "

60 Les Miserablcs

" Something to eat and lodging."

" Nothing more easy/' said mine host, but on turning his
head and taking an observation of the traveller,, he added, " for

pay."

The man drew from his pocket a large leather purse, and
answered,

" I have money."

" Then," said mine host, " I am at your service."

The man put his purse back into his pocket, took off his knap-
sack and put it down hard by the door, and holding his stick in
his hand, sat down on a low stool by the fire. D— — being in
the mountains, the evenings of October are cold there.

However, as the host passed backwards and forwards, he kept
a careful eye on the traveller.

" Is dinner almost ready? " said the man.

" Directly," said mine host.

While the new-comer was wa,rming himself with his back
turned, the worthy innkeeper, Jacquin Labarre, took a pencil
from his pocket, and then tore off the corner of an old paper
which he pulled from a little table near the window. On the
margin he wrote a line or two, folded it, and handed the scrap
of paper to a child, who appeared to serve him as lacquey and
scullion at the same time. The innkeeper whispered a word to
the boy, and he ran off in the direction of the mayor's office.

The traveller saw nothing of this.

He asked a second time: " Is dinner ready? "

41 Yes; in a few moments," said the host.

The boy came back with the paper. The host unfolded it
hurriedly, as one who is expecting an answer. He seemed to
read with attention, then throwing his head on one side, thought
for a moment. Then he took a step towards the traveller, who
seemed drowned in troublous thought.

" Monsieur," said he, " I cannot receive you."

The traveller half rose from his seat.

" Why? Are you afraid I shall not pay you, or do you want
me to pay in advance ? I have money, I tell you."

" It is not that."

"What then?"

" You have money — "

" Yes," said the man.

" And I," said the host; " I have no room."

" Well, put me in the stable," quietly replied the man.

« I cannot."

Fantine 6 1

" Why? "

" Because the horses take all the room."

" Well," responded the man, " a corner in the garret; a truss
of straw: we will see about that after dinner."

" I cannot give you any dinner."

This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, appeared
serious to the traveller. He got up.

"Ah, bah! but I am dying with hunger. I have walked
since sunrise; I have travelled twelve leagues. I will pay, and
I want something to eat."

" I have nothing," said the host.

The man burst into a laugh, and turned towards the fire-place
and the ranges.

"Nothing! and all that?"

" All that is engaged."

"By whom?"

" By those persons, the wagoners.

" How many are there of them? "

" Twelve."

" There is enough there for twenty."

" They have engaged and paid for it all in advance."

The man sat down again and said, without raising his voice:
" I am at an inn. I am hungry, and I shall stay."

The host bent down to his ear, and said in a voice which made
him tremble:

"Go away!"

At these words the traveller, who was bent over, poking some
embers in the fire with the iron-shod end of his stick, turned
suddenly around, and opened his mouth, as if to reply, when the
host, looking steadily at him, added in the same low tone:
" Stop, no more of that. Shall I tell you your name? your
name is Jean Valjean, now shall I tell you who you are ? When
I saw you enter, I suspected something. I sent to the mayor's
office, and here is the reply. Can you read ? " So saying, he
held towards him the open paper, which had just come from
the mayor. The man cast a look upon it; the innkeeper,
after a short silence, said: " It is my custom to be polite to
all: Go!"

The man bowed his head, picked up his knapsack, and went
out.

He took the principal street; he walked at random, slinking
near the houses like a sad and humiliated man : he did not once
turn around. If he had turned, he would have seen the inn-

62 Les Miserables

keeper of the Croix de Colbas, standing in his doorway with all
his guests, and the passers-by gathered about him, speaking
excitedly, and pointing him out ; and from the looks of fear and
distrust which were exchanged, he would have guessed that
before long his arrival would be the talk of the whole town.

He saw nothing of all this : people overwhelmed with trouble
do not look behind; they know only too well that misfortune
follows them.

He walked along in this way some time, going by chance down
streets unknown to him, and forgetting fatigue, as is the case
in sorrow. Suddenly he felt a pang of hunger; night was at
hand, and he looked around to see if he could not discover a
lodging.

The good inn was closed against him : he sought some humble
tavern, some poor cellar.

Just then a light shone at the end of the street ; he saw a pine
branch, hanging by an iron bracket, against the white sky of the
twilight. He went thither.

It was a tavern in the Rue Chaffaut.

The traveller stopped a moment and looked in at the little
window upon the low hall of the tavern, lighted by a small lamp
upon a table, and a great fire in the chimney-place. Some men
were drinking, and the host was warming himself; an iron-pot
hung over the fire seething in the blaze.

Two doors lead into this tavern, which is also a sort of eatihg-
house — one from the street, the other from a small court full of
rubbish.

The traveller did not dare to enter by the street door; he
slipped into the court, stopped again, then timidly raised the
latch, and pushed open the door.

" Who is it? " said the host.

" One who wants supper and a bed."

" All right: here you can sup and sleep."

He went in, all the men who were drinking turned towards
him; the lamp shining on one side of this face, the firelight on
the other, they examined him for some time as he was taking off
his knapsack.

The host said to him: "There is the fire; the supper is
cooking in the pot; come and warm yourself, comrade."

He seated himself near the fireplace and stretched his feet out
towards the fire, half dead with fatigue : an inviting odour came
from the pot. All that could be seen of his face under his
slouched cap assumed a vague appearance of comfort, which

Famine 63

tempered the sorrowful aspect given him by long-continued
suffering.

His profile was strong, energetic, and sad; a physiognomy
strangely marked: at first it appeared humble, but it soon
became severe. His eye shone beneath his eyebrows like a fire
beneath a thicket.

However, one of the men at the table was a fisherman who
had put up his horse at the stable of Labarre's inn before enter-
ing the tavern of the Rue de Chaffaut. It so happened that he
had met, that same morning, this suspicious-looking stranger
travelling between Bras d'Asse and — I forget the place, I think
it is Escoublon. Now, on meeting him, the man, who seemed
already very much fatigued, had asked him to take him on
behind, to which the fisherman responded only by doubling his
pace. The fisherman, half an hour before, had been one of the
throng about Jacquin Labarre, and had himself related his un-
pleasant meeting with him to the people of the Croix de Colbas.
He beckoned to the tavern-keeper to come to him, which he did.
They exchanged a few words in a low voice; the traveller had
again relapsed into thought.

The tavern-keeper returned to the fire, and laying his hand
roughly on his shoulder, said harshly:

" You are going to clear out from here ! "

The stranger turned round and said mildly,
' Ah! Do you know? "
' Yes."

' They sent me away from the other inn."
' And we turn you out of this."
' Where would you have me go? "
' Somewhere else."

The man took up his stick and knapsack, and went off. As
he went out, some children who had followed him from the
Croix de Colbas, and seemed to be waiting for him, threw stones
at him. He turned angrily and threatened them with his stick,
and they scattered like a flock of birds.

He passed the prison: an iron chain hung from the door
attached to a bell. He rang.

The grating opened.

" Monsieur Turnkey," said he, taking off his cap respectfully,
" will you open and let me stay here to-night? "

A voice answered :

" A prison is not a tavern: get yourself arrested and we will
open."

64 Lcs Miserables

The grating closed.

He went into a small street where there are many gardens;
some of them are enclosed only by hedges, which enliven the
street. Among them he saw a pretty little one-story house,
where there was a light in the window. He looked in as he had
done at the tavern. It was a large whitewashed room, with
a bed draped with calico, and a cradle in the corner, some
wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled gun hung against the
wall. A table was set in the centre of the room; a brass lamp
lighted the coarse white table-cloth; a tin mug full of wine
shone like silver, and the brown soup-dish was smoking. At
this table sat a man about forty years old, with a joyous, open
countenance, who was trotting a little child upon his knee.
Near by him a young woman was suckling another child; the
father was laughing, the child was laughing, and the mother
was smiling.

The traveller remained a moment contemplating this sweet
and touching scene. What were his thoughts? He only could
have told: probably he thought that this happy home would
be hospitable, and that where he beheld so much happiness, he
might perhaps find a little pity.

He rapped faintly on the window.

No one heard him.

He rapped a second time.

He heard the woman say, " Husband, I think I hear some
one rap."

" No," replied the husband.

He rapped a third time. The husband got up, took the lamp,
and opened the door.

He was a tall man, half peasant, half mechanic. He wore a
large leather apron that reached to his left shoulder, and formed
a pocket containing a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-
horn, and all sorts of things which the girdle held up. He
turned his head; his shirt, wide and open, showed his bull-like
throat, white and naked; he had thick brows, enormous black
whiskers, and prominent eyes; the lower part of the face was
covered, and had withal that air of being at home which is
quite indescribable.

" Monsieur," said the traveller, " I beg your pardon; for pay
can you give me a plate of soup and a corner of the shed in your
garden to sleep in ? Tell me ; can you, for pay ? "

" Who are you? " demanded the master of the house.

The man replied : "I have come from Puy-Moisson ; I have

Famine 65

walked all day; I have come twelve leagues. Can you, if I
pay?"

" I wouldn't refuse to lodge any proper person who would
pay," said the peasant; " but why do you not go to the inn? "

" There is no room."

" Bah ! That is not possible. It is neither a fair nor a
market-day. Have you been to Labarre's house? "

" Yes."

"Well?"

The traveller replied hesitatingly : " I don't know; he didn't
take me."

" Have you been to that place in the Rue Chaifaut? "

The embarrassment of the stranger increased ; he stammered :
" They didn't take me either."

The peasant's face assumed an expression of distrust: he
looked over the new-comer from head to foot, and suddenly
exclaimed, with a sort of shudder: " Are you the man ! "

He looked again at the stranger, stepped back, put the lamp
on the table, and took down his gun.

His wife, on hearing the words, " are you the man" started
up, and, clasping her two children, precipitately took refuge
behind her husband; she looked at the stranger with affright.
her neck bare, her eyes dilated, murmuring in a low tone: " Tso
maraude J" l

All this happened in less time than it takes to read it; after
examining the man for a moment, as one would a viper, the man
advanced to the door and said :

"Get out!"

" For pity's sake, a glass of water," said the man.

" A gun shot," said the peasant, and then he closed the door
violently, and the man heard two heavy bolts drawn. A moment
afterwards the window-shutters were shut, and noisily barred.

Night came on apace; the cold Alpine winds were blowing;
by the light of the expiring day the stranger perceived in one
of the gardens which fronted the street a kind of hut which
seemed to be made of turf; he boldly cleared a wooden fence
and found himself in the garden. He neared the hut; its door
was a narrow, low entrance; it resembled, in its construction,
the shanties which the road-labourers put up for their temporary
accommodation. He, doubtless, thought that it was, in fact,
the lodging of a road-labourer. He was suffering both from
cold and hunger. He had resigned himself to the latter; but
1 Patois of the French Alps, " Chut d* maraude."

66 Les Missrables

there at least was a shelter from the cold. These huts are not
usually occupied at night. He got down and crawled into the
hut. It was warm there, and he found a good bed of straw.
He rested a moment upon this bed motionless from fatigue;
then, as his knapsack on his back troubled him, and it would
make a good pillow, he began to unbuckle the straps. Just
then he heard a ferocious growling, and looking up saw the head
of an enormous bull-dog at the opening of the hut.

It was a dog-kennel !

He was himself vigorous and formidable; seizing his stick,
he made a shield of his knapsack, and got out of the hut as best
he could, but not without enlarging the rents of his already
tattered garments.

He made his way also out of the garden, but backwards;
being obliged, out of respect to the dog, to have recourse to that
kind of manoeuvre with his stick, which adepts in this sort of
fencing call la rose couverte.

When he had, not without difficulty, got over the fence, he
again found himself alone in the street without lodging, roof,
or shelter, driven even from the straw-bed of that wretched
dog-kennel. He threw himself rather than seated himself on a
stone, and it appears that some one who was passing heard him
exclaim, " I am not even a dog 1 "

Then he arose, and began to tramp again, taking his way out
of the town, hoping to find some tree or haystack beneath which
he could shelter himself. He walked on for some time, his head
bowed down. When he thought he was far away from all human
habitation he raised his eyes, and looked about him inquiringly.
He was in a field: before him was a low hillock covered with
stubble, which after the harvest looks like a shaved head. The
sky was very dark; it was not simply the darkness of night, but
there were very low clouds, which seemed to rest upon the hills,
and covered the whole heavens. A little of the twilight, how-
ever, lingered in the zenith; and as the moon was about to rise
these clouds formed in mid-heaven a vault of whitish light, from
which a glimmer fell upon the earth.

The earth was then lighter than the sky, which produces a
peculiarly sinister effect, and the hill, poor and mean in contour,
loomed out dim and pale upon the gloomy horizon: the whole
prospect was hideous, mean, lugubrious, and insignificant.
There was nothing in the field nor upon the hill, but one ugly
tree, a few steps from the traveller, which seemed to be twisting
and contorting itself.

Fantine 67

This man was evidently far from possessing those delicate
perceptions of intelligence and feeling which produce a sensitive-
ness to the mysterious aspects of nature; still, there was in the
sky, in this hiiiock, plain, and tree, something so profoundly
desolate, that after a moment of motionless contemplation, he
turned back hastily to the road. There are moments when
nature appears hostile.

He retraced his steps ; the gates of D were closed. D ,

which sustained sieges in the religious wars, was still surrounded,
in 1815, by old walls flanked by square towers, since demolished,
lie passed through a breach and entered the town.

It was about eight o'clock in the evening: as he did not know
the streets, he walked at hazard.

So he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary; on pass-
ing by the Cathedral square, he shook his fist at the church.

At the corner of this square stands a printing-office; there
were first printed the proclamations of the emperor, and the
Imperial Guard to the army, brought from the island of Elba,
and dictated by Napoleon himself.

Exhausted with fatigue, and hoping for nothing better, he
lay down on a stone bench in front of this printing-office.

Just then an old woman came out of the church. She saw
the man lying there in the dark, and said :

" What are you doing there, my friend? "

He replied harshly, and with anger in his tone:

" You see, my good woman, I am going to sleep."

The good woman, who really merited the name, was Madame
la Marquise de R .

" Upon the bench? " said she.

" For nineteen years I have had a wooden mattress," said the
man; " to-night I have a stone one."

" You have been a soldier? "

" Yes, my good woman, a soldier."

" Why don't you go to the inn? "

" Because I have no money."

" Alas! " said Madame de R , " I have only four sous ii;

my purse."

" Give them then." The man took the four sous, and
Madame de R continued:

" You cannot find lodging for so little in an inn. But have
you tried? You cannot pass the night so. You must be cold
and hungry. They should give you lodging for charity."

" Lhave knocked at every door."

68 Les Miserables

"Well, what then?"
" Everybody has driven me away."

The good woman touched the man's arm and pointed out to
him, on the other side of the square, a little low house beside
the bishop's palace.

' You have knocked at every door? " she asked,

' Yes."

' Have you knocked at that one there ? "

' No."

' Knock there."

PRUDENCE COMMENDED TO WISDOM

THAT evening, after his walk in the town, the Bishop of D

remained quite late in his room. He was busy with his great
work on Duty, which unfortunately is left incomplete. He
carefully dissected all that the Fathers and Doctors have said
on this serious topic. His book was divided into two parts:
First, the duties of all : Secondly, the duties of each, according
to his position in life. The duties of all are the principal duties;
there are four of them, as set forth by St. Matthew: duty
towards God (Matt, vi.); duty towards ourselves (Matt. v. 29,
30); duty towards our neighbour (Matt. vii. 12); and duty
towards animals (Matt. vi. 20, 25). As to other duties the
bishop found them defined and prescribed elsewhere; those of
sovereigns and subjects in the Epistle to the Romans : those of
magistrates, wives, mothers, and young men, by St. Peter;
those of husbands, fathers, children, and servants, in the
Epistle to the Ephesians; those of the faithful in the Epistle
to the Hebrews; and those of virgins in the Epistle to the
Corinthians. He collated with much labour these injunctions
into a harmonious whole, which he wished to offer to souls.

At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with some incon-
venience on little slips of paper, with a large book open on his
knees, when Madame Magloire, as usual, came in to take the
silver from the panel near the bed. A moment after, the bishop,
knowing that the table was laid, and that his sister was perhaps
waiting, closed his book and went into the dining room.

This dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace,
and with a door upon the street, as we have said, and a window
opening into the garden.

Madame Magloire had just finished placing the plates.

Fantine 69

While she was arranging the table, she was talking with
Mademoiselle Baptistine.

The lamp was on the table, which was near the fireplace,
where a good fire was burning.

One can readily fancy these two women, both past their
sixtieth year: Madame Magloire, small, fat, and quick in her
movements; Mademoiselle Baptistine, sweet, thin, fragile, a
little taller than her brother, wore a silk puce colour dress, in the
style of 1806, which she had bought at that time in Paris, and
which still lasted her. To borrow a common mode of expres-
sion, which has the merit of saying in a single word what a page
would hardly express, Madame Magloire had the air of a peasant,
and Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a lady. Madame Magloire
wore a white funnel-shaped cap: a gold jeannette at her neck,
the only bit of feminine jewellery in the house, a snowy fichu
just peering out above a black frieze dress, with wide short
sleeves, a green and red checked calico apron tied at the waist
with a green ribbon, with a stomacher of the same pinned up
in front; on her feet, she wore coarse shoes and yellow stock-
ings like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle Baptistine's
dress was cut after the fashion of 1806, short waist, narrow
skirt, sleeves with epaulettes, and with flaps and buttons.
Her grey hair was hid under a frizzed front called a I'enfant.
Madame Magloire had an intelligent, clever, and lively air; the
two corners of her mouth unequally raised, and the upper lip
projecting beyond the under one, gave something morose and'
imperious to her expression. So long as monseigneur was
silent, she talked to him without reserve, and with a mingled
respect and freedom; but from the time that he opened his
mouth as we have seen, she implicitly obeyed like mademoiselle.
Mademoiselle Baptistine, however, did not speak. She confined-
herself to obeying, and endeavouring to please. Even when*
she was young, she was not pretty; she had large and very
prominent blue eyes, and a long pinched nose, but her whole
face and person, as we said in the outset, breathed an ineffable
goodness. She had been fore-ordained to meekness, but faith,
charity, hope, these three virtues which gently warm the heart,
had gradually sublimated this meekness into sanctity. Nature
had made her a lamb; religion had made her an angel. Poor,
sainted woman ! gentle, but lost souvenir.

Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often related what occurred
at the bishop's house that evening, that many persons are still
living who can recall the minutest details.

70 Les Miserables

Just as the bishop entered, Madame Magloire was speaking
with some warmth. She was talking to Mademoiselle, upon a
familiar subject, and one to which the bishop was quite accus-
tomed. It was a discussion on the means of fastening the front
door.

It seems that while Madame Magloire was out making pro-
vision for supper, she had heard the news in sundry places.
There was talk that an ill-favoured runaway, a suspicious
vagabond, had arrived and was lurking somewhere in the town,
and that some unpleasant adventures might befall those who
should come home late that night; besides, that the police was
very bad, as the prefect and the mayor did not like one another,
and were hoping to injure each other by untoward events; that
it was the part of wise people to be their own police, and to
protect their own persons; and that every one ought to be
careful to shut up, bolt, and bar his house properly, and secure
his door thoroughly.

Madame Magloire dwelt upon these last words; but the
bishop, having come from a cold room, seated himself before the
fire and began to warm himself, and then, he was thinking of
something else. He did not hear a word of what was let fall by
Madame Magloire, and she repeated it. Then Mademoiselle
Baptistine, endeavouring to satisfy Madame Magloire without
displeasing her brother, ventured to say timidly:

" Brother, do you hear what Madame Magloire says? "

" I heard something of it indistinctly," said the bishop.
Then turning his chair half round, putting his hands on his
knees, and raising towards the old servant his cordial and good-
humoured face, which the firelight shone upon, he said: " Well,
well! what is the matter? Are we in any great danger? "

Then Madame Magloire began her story again, unconsciously
exaggerating it a little. It appeared that a bare-footed gipsy
man, a sort of dangerous beggar, was in the town. He had
gone for lodging to Jacquin Labarre, who had refused to receive
him; he had been seen to enter the town by the boulevard
Gassendi, and to roam through the street at dusk. A man with
a knapsack and a rope, and a terrible-looking face.

" Indeed! " said the bishop.

This readiness to question her encouraged Madame Magloire;
it seemed to indicate that the bishop was really well-nigh
alarmed. She continued triumphantly: "Yes, monseigneur;
it is true. There will something happen to-night in the town:
everybody says so. The police is so badly organised (a con-

Famine 7 1

venient repetition). To live in this mountainous country, and
not even to have street lamps ! If one goes out, it is dark as a
pocket. And I say, monseigneur, and mademoiselle says also — "

" Me? " interrupted the sister; " I say nothing. Whatever
my brother does is well done."

Madame Magloire went on as if she had not heard this pro-
testation :

"We say that this house is not safe at all; and if mon-
seigneur will permit me, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the
locksmith, to come and put the old bolts in the door again;
they are there, and it will take but a minute. I say we must
have bolts, were it only for to-night; for I say that a door
which opens by a latch on the outside to the first comer, nothing
could be more horrible: and then monseigneur has the habit
of always saying ' Come in/ even at midnight. But, my good-
ness ! there is no need even to ask leave — "

At this moment there was a violent knock on the door.

" Come in ! " said the bishop.

Ill

THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE

THE door opened.

It opened quickly, quite wide, as if pushed by some one boldly
and with energy.

A man entered.

That man, we know already; it was the traveller we have
seen wandering about in search of a lodging.

He came in, took one step, and paused, leaving the door open
behind him. He had his knapsack on his back, his stick in his
hand, and a rough, hard, tired, and fierce look in his eyes, as seen
by the firelight. He was hideous. It was an apparition of ill
omen.

Madame Magloire had not even the strength to scream. She
stood trembling with her mouth open.

Mademoiselle Baptistine turned, saw the man enter, and
started up half alarmed; then, slowly turning back again
towards the fire, she looked at her brother, and her face resumed
its usual calmness and serenity.

The bishop looked upon the man with a tranquil eye.

As he was opening his mouth to speak, doubtless to ask the
stranger what he wanted, the man, leaning with both hands on

72 Les Miserables

his club, glanced from one to another in turn, and without
waiting for the bishop to speak, said in a loud voice:

" See here! My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict; I
have been nineteen years in the galleys. Four days ago I was
set free, and started for Pontarlier, which is my destination;
during those four days I have walked from Toulon. To-day I
have walked twelve leagues. When I reached this place this
evening I went to an inn, and they sent me away on account of
my yellow passport, which I had shown at the mayor's office, as
was necessary. I went to another inn; they said: ' Get out! '
It was the same with one as with another; nobody would have
me. I went to the prison, and the turnkey would not let me in.
I crept into a dog-kennel, the dog bit me, and drove me away as
if he had been a man; you would have said that he knew who
I was. I went into the fields to sleep beneath the stars: there
were no stars; I thought it would rain, and there was no good
God to stop the drops, so I came back to the town to get the
shelter of some doorway. There in the square I lay down upon
a stone; a good woman showed me your house, and said:
'Knock there!' I have knocked. What is this place? Are
you an inn ? I have money ; my savings, one hundred and nine
francs and fifteen sous which I have earned in the galleys by
my work for nineteen years. I will pay. What do I care? I
have money. I am very tired — twelve leagues on foot, and I am
so hungry. Can I stay?"

" Madame Magloire," said the bishop, " put on another
plate."

The man took three steps, and came near the lamp which
stood on the table. "Stop," he exclaimed; as if he had not
been understood, " not that, did you understand me? I am a
galley-slave — a convict — I am just from the galleys." He
drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow paper, which he
unfolded. " There is my passport, yellow as you see. That is
enough to have me kicked out wherever I go. Will you read it?
I know how to read, I do. I learned in the galleys. There is
a school there for those who care for it. See, here is what they
have put in the passport: ' Jean Valjean, a liberated convict,

native of / you don't care for that, ' has been nineteen years

in the galleys; five years for burglary ; fourteen years for having
attempted four times to escape. This man is very dangerous.'
There you have it! Everybody has thrust me out; will you
receive me? Is this an inn? Can you give me something to
eat, and a place to sleep? Have you a stable? "

Fantine

/ ^

" Madame Magloire," said the bishop, " put some sheets on
the bed in the alcove."

We have already described the kind of obedience yielded by
these two women.

Madame Magloire went out to fulfil her orders.

The bishop turned to the man:

" Monsieur, sit down and warm yourself: we are going to take
supper presently, and your bed will be made ready while you
sup."

At last the man quite understood; his face, the expression
of which till then had been gloomy and hard, now expressed
stupefaction, doubt, and joy, and became absolutely wonderful.
He began to stutter like a madman.

" True ? What ! You will keep me ? you won't drive me
away ? a convict ! You call me Monsieur and don't say ' Get
out, dog ! ' as everybody else does. I thought that you would
send me away, so I told first off who I am. Oh ! the fine woman
who sent me here! I shall have a supper! a bed like other
people with mattress and sheets — a bed! It is nineteen years
that I have not slept on a bed. You are really willing that I
should stay? You are good people! Besides I have money:
I will pay well. I beg your pardon, Monsieur Innkeeper, what
is your name? I will pay all you say. You are a fine man.
You are an innkeeper, an't you ? "

" I am a priest who lives here," said the bishop.

"A priest," said the man. "Oh, noble priest! Then you
do not ask any money? You are the cure, an't you? the cure
of this big church ? Yes, that's it. How stupid I am ; I didn't
notice your cap."

While speaking, he had deposited his knapsack and stick in
the corner, replaced his passport in his pocket, and sat down.
Mademoiselle Baptistine looked at him pleasantly. He con-
tinued :

" You are humane, Monsieur Cure; you don't despise me.
A good priest is a good thing. Then you don't want me to
pay you ? "

" No," said the bishop, " keep your money. How much have
you ? You said a hundred and nine francs, I think."

" And fifteen sous," added the man.

" One hundred and nine francs and fifteen sous. And how
long did it take you to earn that? "

" Nineteen years."

" Nineteen vears ! "

74 Lcs Miserables

The bishop sighed deeply.

The man continued: " I have all my money yet. In four
days I have spent only twenty-five sous which I earned by un-
loading wagons at Grasse. As you are an abbe, I must tell
you, we have an almoner in the galleys. And then one day I
saw a bishop; monseigneur, they called him. It was the Bishop
of Majore from Marseilles. He is the cure" who is over the
cures. You see — beg pardon, how I bungle saying it, but for
me, it is so far off 1 you know what we are. He said mass in
the centre of the place on an altar; he had a pointed gold thing
on his head, that shone in the sun; it was noon. We were
drawn up in line on three sides, with cannons and matches
lighted before us. We could not see him well. He spoke to us,
but he was not near enough, we did not understand him. That
is what a bishop is."

While he was talking, the bishop shut the door, which he
had left wide open.

Madame Magloire brought in a plate and set it on the table.

" Madame Magloire," said the bishop, " put this plate as
near the fire as you can." Then turning towards his guest, he
added: "The night wind is raw in the Alps; you must be
cold, monsieur."

Every time he said this word monsieur, with his gently
solemn, and heartily hospitable voice, the man's countenance
lighted up. Monsieur to a convict, is a glass of water to a man
dying of thirst at sea. Ignominy thirsts for respect.

" The lamp," said the bishop, " gives a very poor light."

Madame Magloire understood him, and going to his bed-
chamber, took from the mantel the two silver candlesticks,
lighted the candles, and placed them on the table.

" Monsieur Cur6," said the man, " you are good; you don't
despise me. You take me into your house; you light your
candles for me, and I hav'n't hid from you where I come from,
and how miserable I am."

The bishop, who was sitting near him, touched his hand
gently and said: " You need not tell me who you are. This is
not my house; it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any
comer whether he has a name, but whether he has an affliction.
You are suffering; you are hungry and thirsty; be welcome.
And do not thank me; do not tell me that I take you into my
house. This is the home of no man, except him who needs an
asylum. I tell you, who are a traveller, that you are more at
home here than I; whatever is here is yours. What need

Fantine 75

have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me, I
knew it."

The man opened his eyes in astonishment :

" Really? You knew my name? "

" Yes," answered the bishop, " your name is my brother."

" Stop, stop, Monsieur CureV' exclaimed the man. " I was
famished when I came in, but you are so kind that now I don't
know what I am; that is all gone."

The bishop looked at him again and said :

" You have seen much suffering? "

" Oh, the red blouse, the ball and chain, the plank to sleep
on, the heat, the cold, the galley's crew, the lash, the double
chain for nothing, the dungeon for a word, — even when sick in
bed, the chain. The dogs, the dogs are happier 1 nineteen years }
and I am forty-six, and now a yellow passport. That is all."

" Yes," answered the bishop, " you have left a place of suffer-
ing. But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears
of a repentant sinner, than over the white robes of a hundred
good men. If you are leaving that sorrowful place with hate
and anger against men, you are worthy of compassion; if you
leave it with goodwill, gentleness, and peace, you axe better
than any of us."

Meantime Madame Magloire had served up supper; it con-
sisted of soup made of water, oil, bread, and salt, a little pork,
a scrap of mutton, a few figs, a green cheese, and a large loaf
of rye bread. She had, without asking, added to the usual
dinner of the bishop a bottle of fine old Mauves wine.

The bishop's countenance was lighted up with this expression
of pleasure, peculiar to hospitable natures. " To supper ! " he
said briskly, as was his habit when he had a guest. He seated
the man at his right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly quiet
and natural, took her place at his left.

The bishop said the blessing, and then served the soup himself,
according to his usual custom. The man fell to, eating greedily.

Suddenly the bishop said: " It seems to me something is
lacking on the table."

The fact was, that Madame Magloire had set out only the
three plates which were necessary. Now it was the custom of
the house, when the bishop had any one to supper, to set all
six of the silver plates on the table, an innocent display. This
graceful appearance of luxury was a sort of childlikeness which
was full of charm in this gentle but austere household, which
elevated poverty to dignity.

Les Miserables

Madame Magloire understood the remark; without a word
she went out, and a moment afterwards the three plates for
which the bishop had asked were shining on the cloth, sym-
metrically arranged before each of three guests.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER

Now, in order to give an idea of what passed at this table, we
cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage in a letter
from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame de Boischevron, in
which the conversation between the convict and the bishop is
related with charming minuteness.

" This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the
voracity of a starving man. After supper, however, he said:

" ' Monsieur Cure, all this is too good for me, but I must say
that the wagoners, who wouldn't have me eat with them, live
better than you.'

" Between us, the remark shocked me a little. My brother
answered :

" ' They are more fatigued than I am.'

" ' No,' responded this man; ' they have more money. You
are poor, I can see. Perhaps you are not a cur£ even. Are
you only a cure? Ahl if God is just, you well deserve to be a
cure.'

" ' God is more than just,' said my brother.

" A moment after he added :

" ' Monsieur Jean Valjean, you are going to Pontarlier? '

" ' A compulsory journey.'

" I am pretty sure that is the expression the man used.
Then he continued:

" ' I must be on the road to-morrow morning by daybreak.
It is a hard journey. If the nights are cold, the days are warm.'

" ' You are going,' said my brother, ' to a fine country.
During the revolution, when my family was ruined, I took
refuge at first in Franche-Comte, and supported myself there
for some time by the labour of my hands. There I found plenty
of work, and had only to make my choice. There are paper-
mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil-factories, large clock-making
establishments, steel manufactories, copper foundries, at least

Fantine 77

twenty iron foundries, four of which, at Lods, Chatillion, Audin-
court, and Beure, are very large.'

" I think I am not mistaken, and that these are the names that
my brother mentioned. Then he broke off and addressed me :

" ' Dear sister, have we not relatives in that part of the
country ? '

" I answered :

"'We had; among others Monsieur Lucenet, who was
captain of the gates at Pontarlier under the old regime.'

" ' Yes,' replied my brother, ' but in '93, no one had relatives ;
every one depended upon his hands. I laboured. They have,
in the region of Pontarlier, where you are going, Monsieur Val-
jean, a business which is quite patriarchal and very charming,
sister. It is their dairies, which they call fruitieres.'

" Then my brother, while helping this man at table, explained
to him in detail what these fruitieres were; — that they were
divided into two kinds: the great barns, belonging to the rich,
and where there are forty or fifty cows, which produce from
seven to eight thousand cheeses during the summer; and the
associated fruitieres, which belong to the poor; these comprise
the peasants inhabiting the mountains, who put their cows into
a common herd, and divide the proceeds. They hire a cheese-
maker, whom they call a grurin ; the grurin receives the milk
of the associates three times a day, and notes the quantities in
duplicate. Towards the end of April — the dairy work com-
mences, and about the middle of June the cheese-makers drive
their cows into the mountains.

" The man became animated even while he was eating. My
brother gave him some good Mauves wine, which he does not
drink himself, because he says it is too dear. My brother gave
him all these details with that easy gaiety which you know is
peculiar to him, intermingling his words with compliments for
me. He dwelt much upon the good condition of a grurin, as if
he wished that this man should understand, without advising
him directly, and abruptly, that it would be an asylum for him.
One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you.
Well! my brother, during the supper, and during the entire
evening, with the exception of a few words about Jesus, when
he entered, did not say a word which could recall to this man
who he himself was, nor indicate to him who my brother was.
It was apparently a fine occasion to get in a little sermon, and
to set up the bishop above the convict in order to make an
impression upon his mind. It would, perhaps, have appeared

78 Les Miserables

to some to be a duty, having this unhappy man in hand, to
feed the mind at the same time with the body, and to administer
reproof, seasoned with morality and advice, or at least a little
pity accompanied by an exhortation to conduct himself better
in future. My brother asked him neither his country nor his
history; for his crime lay in his history, and my brother seemed
to avoid everything which could recall it to him. At one time,
as my brother was speaking of the mountaineers of Pontarlier,
who have a pleasant labour near heaven, and who, he added, are
happy, because they are innocent, he stopped short, fearing there
might have been in this word which had escaped him something
which could wound the feelings of this man. Upon reflection, I
think I understand what was passing in my brother's mind,
lie thought, doubtless, that this man, who called himself Jean
Valjean, had his wretchedness too constantly before his mind;
that it was best not to distress him by referring to it, and to
make him think, if it were only for a moment, that he was a
common person like any one else, by treating him thus in the
ordinary way. Is not this really understanding charity? Is
there not, dear madame, something truly evangelical in this
delicacy, which abstains from sermonising, moralising, and
making allusions, and is it not the wisest sympathy, when a
man has a suffering point, not to touch upon it at all ? It seems
to me that this was my brother's inmost thought. At any rate,
all I can say is, if he had all these ideas, he did not show them
even to me: he was, from beginning to end, the same as on
other evenings, and he took supper with this Jean Valjean with
the same air and manner that he would have supped with
Monsieur Gedeon, the provost, or with the cur^ of the parish.

" Towards the end, as we were at dessert, some one pushed
the door open. It was mother Gerbaud with her child in her
arms. My brother kissed the child, and borrowed fifteen sous
that I had with me to give to mother Gerbaud. The man,
during this time, paid but little attention to what passed. He
did not speak, and appeared to be very tired. The poor old
lady left, and my brother said grace, after which he turned
towards this man and said : ' You must be in great need of
sleep.' Madame Magloire quickly removed the cloth. I under-
stood that we ought to retire in order that this traveller might
sleep, and we both went to our rooms. However, in a few
moments afterwards, I sent Madame Magloire to put on the bed
of this man a roebuck skin from the Black Forest, which is in
my chamber. The nights are quite cold, and this skin retains

Fantine 79

the warmth. It is a pity that it is quite old, and all the hair
is gone. My brother bought it when he was in Germany, at
Totlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as also the little
ivory-handled knife, which I use at table.

" Madame Magloire came back immediately, we said our
prayers in the parlour which we use as a drying-room, and then
we retired to our chambers without saying a word."

TRANQUILLITY

AFTER having said good-night to his sister, Monseigneur
Bienvenu took one of the silver candlesticks from the table,
handed the other to his guest, and said to him:

" Monsieur, I will show you to your room."

The man followed him.

As may have been understood from what has been said
before, the house was so arranged that one could reach the
alcove in the oratory only by passing through the bishop's
sleeping chamber. Just as they were passing through this room
Madame Magloire was putting up the silver in the cupboard at
the head of the bed. It was the last thing she did every night
before going to bed.

The bishop left his guest in the alcove, before a clean white
bed. The man set down the candlestick upon a small table.

"Come," said the bishop, "a good night's rest to you:
to-morrow morning, before you go, you shall have a cup of
warm milk from our cows."

" Thank you, Monsieur 1'Abbe," said the man.

Scarcely had he pronounced these words of peace, when
suddenly he made a singular motion which would have chilled
the two good women of the house with horror, had they wit-
nessed it. Even now it is hard for us to understaad what
impulse he obeyed at that moment. Did he intend to give a
warning or to throw out a menace ? Or was he simply obeying
a sort of instinctive impulse, obscure ever to himself? He
turned abruptly towards the old man, crossed his arms, and
casting a wild look upon his host, exclaimed in a harsh voice :

" Ah, now, indeed 1 You lodge me in your house, as near
you as that ! "

He checked himself, and added, with a laugh, in which there
was something horrible:

80 Les Miserables

" Have you reflected upon it? Who tells you that I am not
a murderer? "

The bishop responded :

" God will take care of that."

Then with gravity, moving his lips like one praying or talking
to himself, he raised two fingers of his right hand and blessed
the man, who, however, did not bow; and without turning his
head or looking behind him, went into his chamber.

When the alcove was occupied, a heavy serge curtain was
drawn in the oratory, concealing the altar. Before this curtain
the bishop knelt as he passed out, and offered a short prayer.

A moment afterwards he was walking in the garden, surrender-
ing mind and soul to a dreamy contemplation of these grand
and mysterious works of God, which night makes visible to
the eye.

As to the man, he was so completely exhausted that he did
not even avail himself of the clean white sheets; he blew out
the candle with his nostril, after the manner of convicts, and
fell on the bed, dressed as he was, into a sound sleep.

Midnight struck as the bishop came back to his chamber.

A few moments afterwards all in the little house slept.

JEAN VALJEAN

TOWARDS the middle of the night, Jean Valjean awoke^

Jean Valjean was born of a poor peasant family of Brie. In
his childhood he had not been taught to read: when he was
grown up, he chose the occupation of a pruner at Faverolles.
His mother's name was Jeanne Mathieu, his father's Jean
Valjean or Vlajean, probably a nickname, a contraction of
Voila J$an.

Jean Valjean was of a thoughtful disposition, but not sad,
which is characteristic of affectionate natures. Upon the whole,
however, there was something torpid and insignificant, in the
appearance at least, of Jean Valjean. He had lost his parents
when very young. His mother died of malpractice in a milk-
fever : his father, a pruner before him, was killed by a fall from
a tree. Jean Valjean now had but one relative left, his sister,
a widow with seven children, girls and boys. This sister had
brought up Jean Valjean, and, as long as her husband lived, she

Fantine 8 1

had taken care of her young brother. Her husband died,
leaving the eldest of these children eight, the youngest one year
old. Jean Valjean had just reached his twenty-fifth year: he
took the father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister
who reared him. This he did naturally, as a duty, and even
with a sort of moroseness on his part. His youth was spent in
rough and ill-recompensed labour : he never was known to have
a sweetheart; he had not time to be in love.

At night he came in weary and ate his soup without saying a
word. While he was eating, his sister, Mere Jeanne, frequently
took from his porringer the best of his meal; a bit of meat, a
slice of pork, the heart of the cabbage, to give to one of her
children. He went on eating, his head bent down nearly into
the soup, his long hair falling over his dish, hiding his eyes, he-
did not seem to notice anything that was done. At Faverolles,,
not far from the house of the Valjeans, there was on the other
side of the road a farmer's wife named Marie Claude; the
Valjean children, who were always famished, sometimes went
in their mother's name to borrow a pint of milk, which they
would drink behind a hedge, or in some corner of the lane,
snatching away the pitcher so greedily one from another, that
the little girls would spill it upon their aprons and their necks;
if their mother had known of this exploit she would have
punished the delinquents severely. Jean Valjean, rough and
grumbler as he was, paid Marie Claude; their mother never
knew it, and so the children escaped.

He earned in the pruning season eighteen sous a day: after
that he hired out as reaper, workman, teamster, or labourer.
He did whatever he could find to do. His sister worked also,
but what could she do with seven little children? It was a sad
group, which misery was grasping and closing upon, little by
little. There was a very severe winter; Jean had no work, the
family had no bread; literally, no bread, and seven children.

One Sunday night, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Place
de 1'Eglise, in Faverolles, was just going to bed when he heard
a violent blow against the barred window of his shop. He got
down in time to see an arm thrust through the aperture made
by the blow of a fist on the glass. The arm seized a loaf of
bread and took it out. Isabeau rushed out; the thief used his
legs valiantly; Isabeau pursued him and caught him. The
thief had thrown away the bread, but his arm was^still bleeding.
It was Jean Valjean.

All that happened in 1795. Jean Valjean was brought before

82 Lcs Miserables

the tribunals of the time for " burglary at night, in an inhabited
house." He had a gun which he used as well as any marksman
in the world, and was something of a poacher, which hurt him,
there being a natural prejudice against poachers. The poacher,
like the smuggler, approaches very nearly to the brigand. We
must say, however, by the way, that there is yet a deep gulf
between this race of men and the hideous assassin of the city.
The poacher dwells in the forest, and the smuggler in the moun-
tains or upon the sea; cities produce ferocious men, because
they produce corrupt men; the mountains, the forest, and the
sea, render men savage ; they develop the fierce, but yet do not
destroy the human.

Jean Valjean was found guilty: the terms of the code were
explicit; in our civilisation there are fearful hours; such are
those when the criminal law pronounces shipwreck upon a man.
What a mournful moment is that in which society withdraws
itself and gives up a thinking being for ever. Jean Valjean was
sentenced to five years in the galleys.

On the 22nd April, 1796, there was announced in Paris the
victory of Montenotte, achieved by the commanding-general
of the army of Italy, whom the message of the Directory, to the
Five Hundred, of the 2nd Floreal, year IV., called Buonaparte;
that same day a great chain was riveted at the Bicetre. Jean
Valjean was a part of this chain. An old turnkey of the prison,
now nearly ninety, well remembers this miserable man, who
was ironed at the end of the fourth plinth in the north angle
of the court. Sitting on the ground like the rest, he seemed to
comprehend nothing of his position, except its horror: probably
there was also mingled with the vague ideas of a poor ignorant
man a notion that there was something excessive in the penalty.
While they were with heavy hammer-strokes behind his head
riveting the bolt of his iron collar, he was weeping. The tears
choked his words, and he only succeeded in saying from time
to time: " / was a pruner at Faverolles." Then sobbing as he
was, he raised his right hand and lowered it seven times, as if
he was touching seven heads of unequal height, and at this
gesture one could guess that whatever he had done, had been
to feed and clothe seven little children.

He was taken to Toulon, at which place he arrived after a
journey of twenty-seven days, on a cart, the chain still about
his neck. At Toulon he was dressed in a red blouse, all his past
life was effaced, even to his name. He was no longer Jean Val-
jean: he was Number 24,601. What became of the sister?

Fan tine 83

What became of the seven children? Who troubled himself
about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves of the
young tree when it is sawn at the trunk?

It is the old story. These poor little lives, these creatures of
God, henceforth without support, or guide, or asylum; they
passed away wherever chance led, who knows even ? Each took
a different path, it may be, and sank little by little into the
chilling dark which engulfs solitary destinies; that sullen gloom
where are lost so many ill-fated souls in the sombre advance of
the human race. They left that region; the church of what
had been their village forgot them; the stile of what had been
their field forgot them; after a few years in the galleys, even
Jean Valjean forgot them. In that heart, in which there had
been a wound, there was a scar; that was all. During the time
he was at Toulon, he heard but once of his sister; that was, I
think, at the end of the fourth year of his confinement. I do
not know how the news reached him : some one who had known
him at home had seen his sister. She was in Paris, living in a
poor street near Saint Sulpice, the Rue du Geindre. She had
with her but one child, the youngest, a little boy. Where were
the other six? She did not know herself, perhaps. Every
morning she went to a bindery, No. 3 Rue du Sabot, where she
was employed as a folder and book-stitcher. She had to be
there by six in the morning, long before the dawn in the winter.
In the same building with the bindery, there was a school, where
she sent her little boy, seven years old. As the school did not
open until seven, and she must be at her work at six, her boy
had to wait in the yard an hour, until the school opened — an
hour of cold and darkness in the winter. They would not let
the child wait in the bindery, because he was troublesome, they
said. The workmen, as they passed in the morning, saw the
poor little fellow sometimes sitting on the pavement nodding
with weariness, and often sleeping in the dark, crouched and
bent over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the
portress, took pity on him ; she let him come into her lodge, the
furniture of which was only a pallet bed, a spinning-wheel, and
two wooden chairs; and the little one slept there in a corner,
hugging the cat to keep himself warm. At seven o'clock the
school opened and he went in. That is what was told Jean
Valjean. It was as if a window had suddenly been opened,
looking upon the destiny of those he had loved, and then all
was closed again, and he heard nothing more for ever. Nothing
more came to him; he had not seen them, never will he see

Les Miserables

them again 1 and through the remainder of this sad history we
shall not meet them again.

Near the end of this fourth year, his chance of liberty came
to Jean Valjean. His comrades helped him as they always do
in that dreary place, and he escaped. He wandered two days
in freedom through the fields; if it is freedom to be hunted, to
turn your head each moment, to tremble at the least noise, to
be afraid of everything, of the smoke of a chimney, the passing
of a man, the baying of a dog, the gallop of a horse, the striking
of a clock, of the day because you see, and of the night because
you do not; of the road, of the path, the bush, of sleep. During
the evening of the second day he was retaken; he had neither
eaten nor slept for thirty-six hours. The maritime tribunal
extended his sentence three years for this attempt, which made
eight. In the sixth year his turn of escape came again; he
tried it, but failed again. He did not answer at roll-call, and
the alarm cannon was fired. At night the people of the vicinity
discovered him hidden beneath the keel of a vessel on the
stocks; he resisted the galley guard which seized him. Escape
and resistance. This the provisions of the special code punished
by an addition of five years, two with the double chain. Thirteen
years. The tenth year his turn came round again; he made
another attempt with no better success. Three years for this
new attempt. Sixteen years. And finally, I think it was in
the thirteenth year, he made yet another, and was retaken after
an absence of only four hours. Three years for these four hours.
Nineteen years. In October, 1815, he was set at large: he had
entered in 1796 for having broken a pane of glass, and taken a
loaf of bread.

This is a place for a short parenthesis. This is the second
time, in his studies on the penal question and on the sentences
of the law, that the author of this book has met with the theft
of a loaf of bread as the starting-point of the ruin of a destiny.
Claude Gueux stole a loaf of bread; Jean Valjean stole a loaf
of bread; English statistics show that in London starvation is
the immediate cause of four thefts out of five.

Jean Valjean entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering: he
went out hardened; he entered in despair: he went out sullen.

What had been the life of this soul?

Fantine 85

VII

THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR

LET us endeavour to tell.

It is an imperative necessity that society should look into
these things: they are its own work.

He was, as we have said, ignorant; but he was not imbecile.
The natural light was enkindled in him. Misfortune, which has
also its illumination, added to the few rays that he had in his
mind. Under the whip, under the chain, in the cell, in fatigue,
under the burning sun of the galleys, upon the convict's bed
of plank, he turned to his own conscience, and he reflected.

He constituted himself a tribunal.

He began by arraigning himself.

He recognised, that he was not an innocent man, unjustly
punished. He acknowledged that he had committed an extreme
and a blamable action; that the loaf perhaps would not have
been refused him, had he asked for it; that at all events it would
have been better to wait, either for pity, or for work ; that it is
not altogether an unanswerable reply to say : " could I wait
when I was hungry? " that, in the first place, it is very rare
that any one dies of actual hunger; and that, fortunately or
unfortunately, man is so made that he can suffer long and much,
morally and physically, without dying; that he should, there-
fore, have had patience ; that that would have been better even
for those poor little ones; that it was an act of folly in him,
poor, worthless man, to seize society in all its strength, forcibly
by the collar, and imagine that he could escape from misery by
theft; that that was, at all events, a bad door for getting out
of misery by which one entered into infamy; in short, that he
had done wrong.

Then he asked himself:

If he were the only one who had done wrong in the course of
his fatal history? If, in the first place, it were not a grievous
thing that he, a workman, should have been in want of work;
that he, an industrious man, should have lacked bread. If,
moreover, the fault having been committed and avowed, the
punishment had not been savage and excessive. If there were
not a greater abuse, on the part of the law, in the penalty, than
there had been, on the part of the guilty, in the crime. If there
were not an excess of weight in one of the scales of the balance
— on the side of the expiation. If the discharge of the penalty

86 Les Miserables

were not the effacement of the crime; and if the result were
not to reverse the situation, to replace the wrong of the delin-
quent by the wrong of the repression, to make a victim of the
guilty, and a creditor of the debtor, and actually to put the
right on the side of him who had violated it. If that penalty,
taken in connection with its successive extensions for his
attempts to escape, had not at last come to be a sort of outrage
of the stronger on the weaker, a crime of society towards the
individual, a crime which was committed afresh every day, a
crime which had endured for nineteen years.

He questioned himself if human society could have the right
alike to crush its members, in the one case by its unreasonable
carelessness, and in the other by its pitiless care; and to keep
a poor man for ever between a lack and an excess, a lack of
work, an excess of punishment.

If it were not outrageous that society should treat with such
rigid precision those of its members who were most poorly
endowed in the distribution of wealth that chance had made,
and who were, therefore, most worthy of indulgence.

These questions asked and decided, he condemned society
and sentenced it.

He sentenced it to his hatred.

He made it responsible for the doom which he had undergone,
and promised himself that he, perhaps, would not hesitate some
day to call it to an account. He declared to himself that there
was no equity between the injury that he had committed and
the injury that had been committed on him; he concluded, in
short, that his punishment was not, really, an injustice, but that
beyond all doubt it was an iniquity.

Anger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be irritated
when in the wrong; but a man never feels outraged unless in
some respect he is at bottom right. Jean Valjean felt outraged.

And then, human society had done him nothing but injury;
never had he seen anything of her, but this wrathful face which
she calls justice, and which she shows to those whom she strikes
down. No man had ever touched him but to bruise him. All
his contact with men had been by blows. Never, since his
infancy, since his mother, since his sister, never had he been
greeted with a friendly word or a kind regard. Through suffer-
ing on suffering he came little by little to the conviction, that
life was a war; and that in that war he was the vanquished.
He had no weapon but his hate. He resolved to sharpen it in
the galleys and to take it with him when he went out.

Fantine 87

There was at Toulon a school for the prisoners conducted by
some not very skilful friars, where the most essential branches
were taught to such of these poor men as were willing. He
was one of the willing ones. He went to school at forty and
learned to read, write, and cipher. He felt that to increase his
knowledge was to strengthen his hatred. Under certain circum-
stances, instruction and enlightenment may serve as rallying-
points for evil.

It is sad to tell; but after having tried society, which had
caused his misfortunes, he tried Providence which created
society, and condemned it also.

Thus, during those nineteen years of torture and slavery, did
this soul rise and fall at the same time. Light entered on the
one side, and darkness on the other.

Jean Valjean was not, we have seen, of an evil nature. His
heart was still right when he arrived at the galleys. While
there he condemned society, and felt that he became wicked; he
condemned Providence, and felt that he became impious.

It is difficult not to reflect for a moment here.

Can human nature be so entirely transformed from top to
bottom? Can man, created good by God, be made wicked by
man? Can the soul be changed to keep pace with its destiny,
and become evil when its destiny is evil? Can the heart become
distorted and contract deformities and infirmities that are in-
curable, under the pressure of a disproportionate woe, like the
vertebral column under a too heavy brain? Is there not in
every human soul ; was there not in the particular soul of Jean
Valjean, a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in
this world, immortal in the next, which can be developed by
good, kindled, lit up, and made resplendently radiant, and
which evil can never entirely extinguish.

Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every
physiologist would probably, without hesitation, have answered
no, had he seen at Toulon, during the hours of rest, which to
Jean Valjean were hours of thought, this gloomy galley-slave,
seated, with folded arms, upon the bar of some windlass, the
end of his chain stuck into his pocket that it might not drag,
serious, silent, and thoughtful, a pariah of the law which views
man with wrath, condemned by civilisation which views heaven
with severity.

Certainly, we will not conceal it, such a physiologist would
have seen in Jean Valjean an irremediable misery; he would
perhaps have lamented the disease occasioned by the law; but

88 Les Miserables

he would not even have attempted a cure; he would have turned
from the sight of the caverns which he would have beheld in
that soul; and, like Dante at the gate of Hell, he would have
wiped out from that existence the word which the finger of God
has nevertheless written upon the brow of every man — Hope t

Was that state of mind which we have attempted to analyse
as perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it
to our readers? Did Jean Valjean distinctly see, after their
formation, and had he distinctly seen, while they were forming,
all the elements of which his moral misery was made up ? Had
this rude and unlettered man taken accurate account of the
succession of ideas by which he had, step by step, risen and
fallen, till he had reached that mournful plane which for so
many years already had marked the internal horizon of his
mind? Had he a clear consciousness of all that was passing
within him, and of all that was moving him? This we dare
not affirm; we do not, in fact, believe it. Jean Valjean was
too ignorant, even after so much ill fortune, for nice discrimina-
tion in these matters. At times he did not even know exactly
what were his feelings. Jean Valjean was in the dark; he
suffered in the dark ; he hated in the dark ; we might say that
he hated in his own sight. He lived constantly in this dark-
ness, groping blindly and as in a dream. Only, at intervals,
there broke over him suddenly, from within or from without, a
shock of anger, an overflow of suffering, a quick pallid flash
which lit up his whole soul, and showed all around him, before
and behind, in the glare of a hideous light, the fearful precipices
and the sombre perspectives of his fate.

The flash passed away; the night fell, and where was he?
He no longer knew.

The peculiarity of punishment of this kind, in which what is
pitiless, that is to say, what is brutalising, predominates, is to
transform little by little, by a slow stupefaction., a man into an
animal, sometimes into a wild beast. Jean Val jean's repeated
and obstinate attempts to escape are enough to prove that such
is the strange effect of the law upon a human soul. Jean
Valjean had renewed these attempts, so wholly useless and
foolish, as often as an opportunity offered, without one moment's
thought of the result, or of experience already undergone. He
escaped wildly, like a wolf on seeing his cage-door open. In-
stinct said to him: " Away! " Reason said to him: " Stay! "
But before a temptation so mighty, reason fled; instinct alone
remained. The beast alone was in play. When he was retaken,

Fantine 89

the new severities that were inflicted upon him only made him
still more fierce.

We must not omit one circumstance, which is, that in physical
strength he far surpassed all the other inmates of the prison.
At hard work, at twisting a cable, or turning a windlass, Jean
Valjean was equal to four men. He would sometimes lift and
hold enormous weights on his back, and would occasionally act
the part of what is called a jack, or what was called in old
French an orgeuil, whence came the name, we may say by the
way, of the Rue Montorgeuil near the Halles of Paris. His
comrades had nicknamed him Jean the Jack. At one time,
while the balcony of the City Hall of Toulon was undergoing
repairs, one of Puget's admirable caryatides, which support the
balcony, slipped from its place, and was about to fall, when
Jean Valjean, who happened to be there, held it up on his
shoulder till the workmen came.

His suppleness surpassed his strength. Certain convicts,
always planning escape, have developed a veritable science of
strength and skill combined, — the science of the muscles. A
mysterious system of statics is practised throughout daily by
prisoners, who are eternally envying the birds and flies. To
scale a wall, and to find a foot-hold where you could hardly see
a projection, was play for Jean Valjean. Given an angle in a
wall, with the tension of his back and his knees, with elbows
and hands braced against the rough face of the stone, he would
ascend, as if by magic, to a third story. Sometimes he climbed
up in this manner to the roof of the galleys.

He talked but little, and never laughed. Some extreme
emotion was required to draw from him, once or twice a year,
that lugubrious sound of the convict, which is like the echo of
a demon's laugh. To those who saw him, he seemed to be
absorbed in continually looking upon something terrible.

He was absorbed, in fact.

Through the diseased perceptions of an incomplete nature
and a smothered intelligence, he vaguely felt that a monstrous
weight was over him. In that pallid and sullen shadow in
which he crawled, whenever he turned his head and endeavoured
to raise his eyes, he saw, with mingled rage and terror, forming,
massing, and mounting up out of view above him with horrid
escarpments, a kind of frightful accumulation of things, of laws,
of prejudices, of men, and of acts, the outlines of which escaped
him, the weight of which appalled him, and which was no other
than that prodigious pyramid that we call civilisation. Here

90 Les Miserables

and there in that shapeless and crawling mass, sometimes near
at hand, sometimes afar off, and upon inaccessible heights, he
distinguished some group, some detail vividly clear, here the
jailer with his staff, here the gendarme with his sword, yonder
the mitred archbishop ; and on high, in a sort of blaze of glory,
the emperor crowned and resplendent. ^ It seemed to him that
these distant splendours, far from dissipating his night, made
it blacker and more deathly. All this, laws, prejudices, acts,
men, things, went and came above him, according to the com-
plicated and mysterious movement that God impresses upon
civilisation, marching over him and crushing him with an in-
describably tranquil cruelty and inexorable indifference. Souls
sunk to the bottom of possible misfortune, and unfortunate
men lost in the lowest depths, where they are no longer seen,
the rejected of the law, feel upon their heads the whole weight
of that human society, so formidable to him who is without it,
so terrible to him who is beneath it.

In such a situation Jean Valjean mused, and what could be
the nature of his reflections ?

If a millet seed under a millstone had thoughts, doubtless it
would think what Jean Valjean thought.

All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagoria full
of realities, had at last produced within him a condition which
was almost inexpressible.

Sometimes in the midst of his work in the galleys he would
stop, and begin to think. His reason, more mature, and, at
the same time, perturbed more than formerly, would revolt.
All that had happened to him would appear absurd; all that
surrounded him would appear impossible. He would say to
himself: " it is a dream." He would look at the jailer standing
a few steps from him; the jailer would seem to be a phantom;
all at once this phantom would give him a blow with a stick.

For him the external world had scarcely an existence. It
would be almost true to say that for Jean Valjean there was no
sun, no beautiful summer days, no radiant sky, no fresh April
dawn. Some dim window light was all that shone in his soul.

To sum up, in conclusion, what can be summed up and
reduced to positive results, of all that we have been showing,
we will make sure only of this, that in the course of nineteen
years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive pruner of Faverolles, the
terrible galley-slave of Toulon, had become capable, thanks
to the training he had received in the galleys, of two species of
crime; first, a sudden, unpremeditated action, full of rashness,

Fantine 91

all instinct, a sort of reprisal for the wrong he had suffered;
secondly, a serious, premeditated act, discussed by his con-
science, and pondered over with the false ideas which such a
fate will give. His premeditations passed through the three
successive phases to which natures of a certain stamp are
limited — reason, will, and obstinacy. He had as motives,
habitual indignation, bitterness of soul, a deep sense of injuries
suffered, a reaction even against the good, the innocent, and
the upright, if any such there are. The beginning as well as
the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law; that
hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some pro-
vidential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society,
then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation.
and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure
some living being, it matters not who. So, the passport was
right which described Jean Valjean as a very dangerous man.

From year to year this soul had withered more and more,
slowly, but fatally. With this withered heart, he had a dry
eye. When he left the galleys, he had not shed a tear foi
nineteen years.

VIII
THE WATERS AND THE SHADOW

A MAN overboard!

What matters it ! the ship does not stop. The wind is blow-
ing, that dark ship must keep on her destined course. She
passes away.

The man disappears, then reappears, he plunges and rises
again to the surface, he calls, he stretches out his hands, they
hear him not; the ship, staggering under the gale, is straining
every rope, the sailors and passengers see the drowning man
no longer; his miserable head is but a point in the vastness of
the billows.

He hurls cries of despair into the depths. What a spectre
is that disappearing sail! He looks upon it, he looks upon it
with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it diminishes.
He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went
and came upon the deck with the rest, he had his share of the
air and of the sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has
become of him? He slipped, he fell; and it is finished.

He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing under his feet

92 Les Miserables

but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and scattered
by the wind, close round him hideously; the rolling of the abyss
bears him along; shreds of water are flying about his head; a
populace of waves spit upon him; confused openings half
swallow him; when he sinks he catches glimpses of yawning
precipices full of darkness; fearful unknown vegetations seize
upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to themselves; he feels
that he is becoming the great deep ; he makes part of the foam ;
the billows toss him from one to the other; he tastes the bitter-
ness; the greedy ocean is eager to devour him; the monster
plays with his agony. It seems as if all this were liquid hate.

But yet he struggles.

He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he
struggles; he swims. He — that poor strength that fails so
soon — he combats the unfailing.

Where now is the ship? Far away yonder. Hardly visible
in the pallid gloom of the horizon.

The wind blows in gusts; the billows overwhelm him. He
raises his eyes, but sees only the livid clouds. He, in his dying
agony, makes part of this immense insanity of the sea. He
is tortured to his death by its immeasurable madness. He
hears sounds, which are strange to man, sounds which seem to
come not from earth, but from some frightful realm beyond.

There are birds in the clouds, even as there are angels above
human distresses, but what can they do for him? They fly,
sing, float, while he is gasping.

He feels that he is buried at once by those two infinites, the
ocean and the sky ; the one is a tomb, the other a pall.

Night descends, he has been swimming for hours, his strength
is almost exhausted; that ship, that far off thing, where there
were men, is gone ; he is alone in the terrible gloom of the abyss ;
he . sinks, he strains, he struggles, he feels beneath him the
shadowy monsters of the unseen; he shouts.

Men are no more. Where is God?

He shouts. Help! help! He shouts incessantly;

Nothing in the horizon. Nothing in the sky.

He implores the blue vault, the waves, the rocks ; all are deaf.
He supplicates the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys
only the infinite.

Around him are darkness, storm, solitude, wild and uncon-
scious tumult, the ceaseless tumbling of the fierce waters;
within him, horror and exhaustion. Beneath him the engulfing
abyss. No resting-place. He thinks of the shadowy adventures

Fantine 93

of his lifeless body in the limitless gloom. The biting cold
paralyses him. His hands clutch spasmodically, and grasp at
nothing. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, blasts, stars, all useless!
What shall he do? He yields to despair; worn out, he seeks
death; he no longer resists; he gives himself up; he abandons
the contest, and he is rolled away into the dismal depths of the
abyss for ever.

0 implacable march of human society! Destruction of men
and of souls marking its path ! Ocean, where fall all that the
law lets fall ! Ominous disappearance of aid ! 0 moral death !

The sea is the inexorable night into which the penal law casts
its victims. The sea is the measureless misery.

The soul drifting in that sea may become a corpse. Who
shall restore it to life?

NEW GRIEFS

WHEN the time for leaving the galleys came, and when there
were sounded in the ear of Jean Valjean the strange words:
You are free! the moment seemed improbable and unreal; a
ray of living light, a ray of the true light of living men, suddenly
penetrated his soul. But this ray quickly faded away. Jean
Valjean had been dazzled with the idea of liberty. He had
believed in a new life. He soon saw what sort of liberty that
is which has a yellow passport.

And along with that there were many bitter experiences.
He had calculated that his savings, during his stay at the galleys,
would amount to a hundred and seventy-one francs. It is
proper to say that he had forgotten to take into account the
compulsory rest on Sundays and holydays, which, in nineteen
years, required a deduction of about twenty-four francs. How-
ever that might be, his savings had been reduced, by various
local charges, to the sum of a hundred and nine francs and1
fifteen sous, which was counted out to him on his departure.

He understood nothing of this, and thought himself wronged,
or, to speak plainly, robbed.

The day after his liberation, he saw before the door of an
orange flower distillery at Grasse, some men who were unloading
bags. He offered his services. They were in need of help and
accepted them. He set at work. He was intelligent, robust,
and handy; he did his best; the foreman appeared to be

94 Les Miserables

satisfied. While he was at work, a gendarme passed, noticed
him, and asked for his papers. He was compelled to show the
yellow passport. That done, Jean Valjean, resumed his work.
A little while before, he had asked one of the labourers how
much they were paid per day for this work, and the reply was:
thirty sous. At night, as he was obliged to leave the town next
morning, he went to the foreman of the distillery, and asked for
his pay. The foreman did not say a word, but handed him
fifteen sous. He remonstrated. The man replied: " That
is good enough for you." He insisted. The foreman looked
him in the eyes and said: " Look out for the lock-up I "

There again he thought himself robbed.

Society, the state, in reducing his savings, had robbed him
by wholesale. Now it was the turn of the individual, who was
robbing him by retail.

Liberation is not deliverance. A convict may leave the
galleys behind, but not his condemnation.

This was what befell him at Grasse. We have seen how he
was received at D .

As the cathedral clock struck two, Jean Valjean awoke.

What awakened him was, too good a bed. For nearly twenty
years he had not slept in a bed, and, although he had not un-
dressed, the sensation was too novel not to disturb his sleep.

He had slept something more than four hours. His fatigue
had passed away. He was not accustomed to give many hours
to repose.

He opened his eyes, and looked for a moment into the
obscurity about him, then he closed them to go to sleep again.

When many diverse sensations have disturbed the day, when
the mind is preoccupied, we can fall asleep once, but not a second
time. Sleep comes at first much more readily than it comes
again. Such was the case with Jean Valjean. He could not
get to sleep again, and so he began to think.

He was in one of those moods in which the ideas we have in
our minds are perturbed. There was a kind of vague ebb and
flow in his brain. His oldest and his latest memories floated
about pell mell, and crossed each other confusedly, losing their
own shapes, swelling beyond measure, then disappearing all at

Fantine 95

once, as if in a muddy and troubled stream. Many thoughts
came to him, but there was one which continually presented
itself, and which drove away all others. What that thought
was, we shall tell directly. He had noticed the six silver plates
and the large ladle that Madame Magloire had put on the table.

Those six silver plates took possession of him. There they
were, within a few steps. At the very moment that he passed
through the middle room to reach the one he was now in, the
old servant was placing them in a little cupboard at the head
of the bed. He had marked that cupboard well: on the right,
coming from the dining-room. They were solid ; and old silver.
With the big ladle, they would bring at least two hundred francs,
double what he had got for nineteen years' labour. True; he
would have got more if the " government " had not " robbed "
him.

His mind wavered a whole hour, and a long one, in fluctua-
tion and in struggle. The clock struck three. He opened his
eyes, rose up hastily in bed, reached out his arm and felt his
haversack, which he had put into the corner of the alcove, then
he thrust out his legs and placed his feet on the ground, and
found himself, he knew not how, seated on his bed.

He remained for some time lost in thought in that attitude,
which would have had a rather ominous look, had any one seen
him there in the dusk — he only awake in the slumbering house.
All at once he stooped down, took off his shoes, and put them
softly upon the mat in front of the bed, then he resumed his
thinking posture, and was still again.

In that hideous meditation, the ideas which we have been
pointing out, troubled his brain without ceasing, entered,
departed, returned, and became a sort of weight upon him;
and then he thought, too, he knew not why, and with that
mechanical obstinacy that belongs to reverie, of a convict
named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose
trousers were only held up by a single knit cotton suspender.
The checked pattern of that suspender came continually before
his mind.

He continued in this situation, and would perhaps have
remained there until daybreak, if the clock had not struck the
quarter or the half-hour. The clock seemed to say to him:
" Come along ! "

He rose to his feet, hesitated for a moment longer, and
listened; all was still in the house; he walked straight and
cautiously towards the window, which he could discern. The

96 Les Miserables

night was not very dark; there was a full moon, across which
large clouds were driving before the wind. This produced
alternations of light and shade, out-of-doors eclipses and
illuminations, and in-doors a kind of glimmer. This glimmer,
enough to enable him to find his way, changing with the pass-
ing clouds, resembled that sort of livid light, which falls through
the window of a dungeon before which men are passing and
repassing. On reaching the window, Jean Valjean examined
it. It had no bars, opened into the garden, and was fastened,
according to the fashion of the country, with a little wedge only.
He opened it; but as the cold, keen air rushed into the room,
he closed it again immediately. He looked into the garden
with that absorbed look which studies rather than sees. The
garden was enclosed with a white wall, quite low, and readily
scaled. Beyond, against the sky, he distinguished the tops of
trees at equal distances apart, which showed that this wall
separated the garden from an avenue or a lane planted with
trees.

When he had taken this observation, he turned like a man
whose mind is made up, went to his alcove, took his haversack,
opened it, fumbled in it, took out something which he laid upon
the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, tied up his bundle,
swung it upon his shoulders, put on his cap, and pulled the vizor
down over his eyes, felt for his stick, and went and put it in the
corner of the window, then returned to the bed, and resolutely
took up the object which he had laid on it. It looked like a
short iron bar, pointed at one end like a spear.

It would have been hard to distinguish in the darkness for
what use this piece of iron had been made. Could it be a lever ?
Could it be a club ?

In the day-time, it would have been seen to be nothing but
a miner's drill. At that time, the convicts were sometimes
employed in quarrying stone on the high hills that surround
Toulon, and they often had miners' tools in their possession.
Miners' drills are of solid iron, terminating at the lower end in
a point, by means of which they are sunk into the rock.

He took the drill in his right hand, and holding his breath,
with stealthy steps, he moved towards the door of the next
room, which was the bishop's, as we know. On reaching the
door, he found it unlatched. The bishop had not closed it.

Fantine 97

WHAT HE DOES

JEAN VALJEAN listened. Not a sound.

He pushed the door.

He pushed it lightly with the end of his finger, with the
stealthy and timorous carefulness of a cat. The door yielded
to the pressure with a silent, imperceptible movement, which
made the opening a little wider.

He waited a moment, and then pushed the door again more
boldly.

It yielded gradually and silently. The opening was now wide
enough for him to pass through; but there was a small table
near the door which with it formed a troublesome angle, and
which barred the entrance.

Jean Valjean saw the obstacle. At all hazards the opening
must be made still wider.

He so determined, and pushed the door a third time, harder
than before. This time a rusty hinge suddenly sent out into
the darkness a harsh and prolonged creak.

Jean Valjean shivered. The noise of this hinge sounded in
his ears as clear and terrible as the trumpet of the Judgment
Day.

In the fantastic exaggeration of the first moment, he almost
imagined that this hinge had become animate, and suddenly
endowed with a terrible life; and that it was barking like a dog
to warn everybody, and rouse the sleepers.

He stopped, shuddering and distracted, and dropped from
his tiptoes to his feet. He felt the pulses of his temples beat like
trip-hammers, and it appeared to him that his breath came from
his chest with the roar of wind from a cavern. It seemed im-
possible that the horrible sound of this incensed hinge had not
shaken the whole house with the shock of an earthquake: the
door pushed by him had taken the alarm, and had called out;
the old man would arise; the two old women would scream;
help would come; in a quarter of an hour the town would be
alive with it, and the gendarmes in pursuit. For a moment
he thought he was lost.

He stood still, petrified like the pillar of salt, not daring to
stir. Some minutes passed. The door was wide open; he
ventured a look into the roonu Nothing had moved. He

I D

Les Miserables

listened. Nothing was stirring in the house. The noise of the
rusty hinge had wakened nobody.

This first danger was over, but still he felt within him a fright-
ful tumult. Nevertheless he did not flinch. Not even when
he thought he was lost had he flinched. His only thought was
to make an end of it quickly. He took one step and was in the
room.

A deep calm filled the chamber. Here and there indistinct,
confused forms could be distinguished; which by day, were
papers scattered over a table, open folios, books piled on a stool,
an arm-chair with clothes on it, a prie-dieu, but now were only
dark corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced, care-
fully avoiding the furniture. At the further end of the room
he could hear the equal and quiet breathing of the sleeping
bishop.

Suddenly he stopped : he was near the bed, he had reached it
sooner than he thought.

Nature sometimes joins her effects and her appearances to
our acts with a sort of serious and intelligent appropriateness,
as if she would compel us to reflect. For nearly a half hour a
great cloud had darkened the sky. At the moment when Jean
Valjean paused before the bed the cloud broke as if purposely,
and a ray of moonlight crossing the high window, suddenly
lighted up the bishop's pale face. He slept tranquilly. He
was almost entirely dressed, though in bed, on account of the
cold nights of the lower Alps, with a dark woollen garment which
covered his arms to the wrists. His head had fallen on the
pillow in the unstudied attitude of slumber; over the side of
the bed hung his hand, ornamented with the pastoral ring, and
which had done so many good deeds, so many pious acts. His
entire countenance was lit up with a vague expression of content,
hope, and happiness. It was more than a smile and almost a
radiance. On his forehead rested the indescribable reflection
of an unseen light. The souls of the upright in sleep have vision
of a mysterious heaven.

A reflection from this heaven shone upon the bishop.

But it was also a luminous transparency, for this heaven was
within him; this heaven was his conscience.

At the instant when the moonbeam overlay, so to speak, this
inward radiance, the sleeping bishop appeared as if in a halo.
But it was very mild, and veiled in an ineffable twilight. The
moon in the sky, nature drowsing, the garden without a pulse,
the quiet house, the hour, the moment, the silence, added some-

Fantine 99

thing strangely solemn and unutterable to the venerable repose
of this man, and enveloped his white locks and his closed eyes
with a serene and majestic glory, this face where all was hope
and confidence — this old man's head and infant's slumber.

There was something of divinity almost in this man, thus
unconsciously august.

Jean Valjean was in the shadow with the iron drill in his hand,
erect, motionless, terrified, at this radiant figure. He had never
seen anything comparable to it. This confidence filled him with
fear. The moral world has no greater spectacle than this; a
troubled and restless conscience on the verge of committing an
evil deed, contemplating the sleep of a good man.

This sleep in this solitude, with a neighbour such as he,
contained a touch of the sublime, which he felt vaguely but
powerfully.

None could have told what was within him, not even himself.
To attempt to realise it, the utmost violence must be imagined
in the presence of the most extreme mildness. In his face
nothing could be distinguished with certainty. It was a sort
of haggard astonishment. He saw it; that was all. But what
were his thoughts; it would have been impossible to guess. It
was clear that he was moved and agitated. But of what nature
was this emotion?

He did not remove his eyes from the old man. The only thing
which was plain from his attitude and his countenance was a
strange indecision. You would have said he was hesitating
between two realms, that of the doomed and that of the saved.
He appeared ready either to cleave this skull, or to kiss this
hand.

In a few moments he raised his left hand slowly to his fore-
head and took off his hat; then, letting his hand fall with the
same slowness, Jean Valjean resumed his contemplations, his
cap in his left hand, his club in his right, and his hair bristling
on his fierce-looking head.

Under this frightful gaze the bishop still slept in profoundest
peace.

The crucifix above the mantelpiece was dimly visible in the
moonlight, apparently extending its arms towards both, with a
benediction for one and a pardon for the other.

Suddenly Jean Valjean put on his cap, then passed quickly,
without looking at the bishop, along the bed, straight to the
cupboard which he perceived near its head; he raised the drill
to force the lock ; the key was in it; he opened it; the first thing

ioo Les Miserables

he saw was the basket of silver, he took it, crossed the room with
hasty stride, careless of noise, reached the door, entered the
oratory, took his stick, stepped out, put the silver in his knap-
sack, threw away the basket, ran across the garden, leaped over
the wall like a tiger, and fled.

THE next day at sunrise, Monseigneur Bienvenu was walking
in the garden. Madame Magloire ran towards him quite beside
herself.

" Monseigneur, monseigneur," cried she, " does your greatness
know where the silver basket is ? "

" Yes," said the bishop.

" God be praised ! " said she, " I did not know what had
become of it."

The bishop had just found the basket on a flower-bed. He
gave it to Madame Magloire and said: " There it is."

" Yes," said she, " but there is nothing in it. The silver? "

"Ah! " said the bishop, " it is the silver then that troubles
3'ou. I do not know where that is."

" Good heavens ! it is stolen. That man who came last night
stole it."

And in the twinkling of an eye, with all the agility of which
her age was capable, Madame Magloire ran to the oratory, went
into the alcove, and came back to the bishop. The bishop was
bending with some sadness over a cochlearia des Guillons, which
the basket had broken in falling. He looked up at Madame
Magloire's cry:

" Monseigneur, the man has gone! the silver is stolen! "

While she was uttering this exclamation her eyes fell on an
angle of the garden where she saw traces of an escalade. A
capstone of the wall had been thrown down.

" See, there is where he got out; he jumped into Cochefilet
lane. The abominable fellow ! he has stolen our silver ! "

The bishop was silent for a moment, then raising his serious
eyes, he said mildly to Madame Magloire:

" Now first, did this silver belong to us? "

Madame Magloire did not answer; after a moment the bishop
continued :

" Madame Magloire, I have for a long time wrongfully with-

Fantine i o I

held this silver; it belonged to the poor. Who was this man?
A poor man evidently."

" Alas 1 alas ! " returned Madame Magloire. " It is not on my
account or mademoiselle's; it is all the same to us. But it is on
yours, monseigneur. What is monsieur going to eat from now ? "

The bishop looked at her with amazement:

" How so ! have we no tin plates ? "

Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders.

" Tin smells."

" Well, then, iron plates."

Madame Magloire made an expressive gesture.

" Iron tastes."

" Well," said the bishop, " then, wooden plates."

In a few minutes he was breakfasting at the same table at
which Jean Valjean sat the night before. While breakfasting,
Monseigneur Bienvenu pleasantly remarked to his sister who
said nothing, and Madame Magloire who was grumbling to
herself, that there was really no need even of a wooden spoon
or fork to dip a piece of bread into a cup of milk.

" Was there ever such an idea? " said Madame Magloire to
herself, as she went backwards and forwards: "to take in a
man like that, and to give him a bed beside him ; and yet what
a blessing it was that he did nothing but steal ! Oh, my stars !
it makes the chills run over me when I think of it ! "

Just as the brother and sister were rising from the table,
there was a knock at the door,

" Come in," said the bishop.

The door opened. A strange, fierce group appeared on the
threshold. Three men were holding a fourth by the collar.
The three men were gendarmes; the fourth Jean Valjean.

A brigadier of gendarmes, who appeared to head the group,
was near the door. He advanced towards the bishop, giving
a military salute.

" Monseigneur," said he —

At this word Jean Valjean, who was sullen and seemed
entirely cast down, raised his head with a stupefied air —

" Monseigneur ! " he murmured, " then it is not the cure" 1 "

" Silence ! " said a gendarme, " it is monseigneur, the bishop."

In the meantime Monsieur Bienvenu had approached as
quickly as his great age permitted :

" Ah, there you are! " said he, looking towards Jean Valjean,
"I am glad to see you. But! I gave you the candlesticks
also, which are silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred

IO2 Les Miserables

francs. Why did you not take them along with your plates? "

Jean Valjean opened his eyes and looked at the bishop with
an expression which no human tongue could describe.

" Monseigneur," said the brigadier, " then what this man said
was true? We met him. He was going like a man who was
running away, and we arrested him in order to see. He had
this silver."

" And he told you," interrupted the bishop, with a smile,
" that it had been given him by a good old priest with whom he
had passed the night. I see it all. And you brought him back
here? It is all a mistake."

" If that is so," said the brigadier, " we can let him go."

" Certainly," replied the bishop.

The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who shrank back —

" Is it true that they let me go? " he said in a voice almost
inarticulate, as if he were speaking in his sleep.

"Yes! you can go. Do you not understand?" said a
gendarme.

" My friend," said the bishop, " before you go away, here are
your candlesticks; take them."

He went to the mantelpiece, took the two candlesticks, and
brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women beheld the
action without a word, or gesture, or look, that might disturb
the bishop.

Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two
candlesticks mechanically, and with a wild appearance.

" Now," said the Bishop, " go in peace. By the way, my
friend, when you come again, you need not come through the
garden. You can always come in and go out by the front door.
It is closed only with a latch, day or night."

Then turning to the gendarmes, he said:

" Messieurs, you can retire." The gendarmes withdrew.

Jean Valjean felt like a man who is just about to faint.

The bishop approached him, and said, in a low voice:

" Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use
this silver to become an honest man."

Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of this promise, stood
confounded. The bishop had laid much stress upon these
words as he uttered them. He continued, solemnly :

" Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil,
but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I with-
draw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition,
and I give it to God ! "

Fantine 103

XIII

PETIT GERVAIS

JEAN VALJEAN went out of the city as if he were escaping. He
made all haste to get into the open country, taking the first
lanes and by-paths that offered, without noticing that he was
every moment retracing his steps. He wandered thus all the
morning. He had eaten nothing, but he felt no hunger. He
was the prey of a multitude of new sensations. He felt some-
what angry, he knew not against whom. He could not have
told whether he were touched or humiliated. There came over
him, at times, a strange relenting which he struggled with, and
to which he opposed the hardening of his past twenty years.
This condition wearied him. He saw, with disquietude, shaken
within him that species of frightful calm which the injustice of
his fate had given him. He asked himself what should replace it.
At times he would really have liked better to be in prison with
the gendarmes, and that things had not happened thus; that
would have given him less agitation. Although the season was
well advanced, there were yet here and there a few late flowers
in the hedges, the odour of which, as it met him in his walk,
recalled the memories of his childhood. These memories were
almost insupportable, it was so long since they had occurred to
him.

Unspeakable thoughts thus gathered in his mind the whole
day.

As the sun was sinking towards the horizon, lengthening the
shadow on the ground of the smallest pebble, Jean Valjean was
seated behind a thicket in a large reddish plain, an absolute
desert. There was no horizon but the Alps. Not even the
steeple of a village church. Jean Valjean might have been

three leagues from D . A by-path which crossed the plain

passed a few steps from the thicket.

In the midst of this meditation, which would have heightened
not a little the frightful effect of his rags to any one who might
have met him, he heard a joyous sound.

He turned his head, and saw coming along the path a little
Savoyard, a dozen years old, singing, with his hurdygurdy at
his side, and his marmot box on his back.

One of those pleasant and gay youngsters who go from place
to place, with their knees sticking through their trousers.

Always singing, the boy stopped from time to time, and

i 04 Les Miserables

played at tossing up some pieces of money that he had in his
hand, probably his whole fortune. Among them there was one
forty-sous piece.

The boy stopped by the side of the thicket without seeing
Jean Valjean, and tossed up his handful of sous; until this time
he had skilfully caught the whole of them upon the back of his
hand.

This time the forty-sous piece escaped him, and rolled towards
the thicket, near Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean put his foot upon it.

The boy, however, had followed the piece with his eye, and
had seen where it went.

He was not frightened, and walked straight to the man.

It was an entirely solitary place. Far as the eye could reach
there was no one on the plain or in the path. Nothing could
be heard, but the faint cries of a flock of birds of passage, that
were flying across the sky at an immense height. The child
turned his back to the sun, which made his hair like threads of
gold, and flushed the savage face of Jean Valjean with a lurid
glow.

" Monsieur," said the little Savoyard, with that childish
confidence which is made up of ignorance and innocence, " my
piece? "

" What is your name? " said Jean Valjean,

" Petit Gervais, monsieur."

" Get out," said Jean Valjean.

" Monsieur," continued the boy, " give me my piece."

Jean Valjean dropped his head and did not answer.

The child began again:

" My piece, monsieur ! "

Jean Valjean's eye remained fixed on the ground.

"My piece!" exclaimed the boy, "my white piece! my
silver!"

Jean Valjean did not appear to understand. The boy took
him by the collar of his blouse and shook him. And at the same
time he made an effort to move the big, iron-soled shoe which
was placed upon his treasure.

" I want my piece ! my forty-sous piece ! "

The child began to cry. Jean Valjean raised his head. He
still kept his seat. His look was troubled. He looked upon the
boy with an air of wonder, then reached out his hand towards
his stick, and exclaimed in a terrible voice: " Who is there? "

"Me, monsieur," answered the boy. "Petit Gervais! me!

Fantine 105

me ! give me my forty sous, if you please ! Take away your foot,
monsieur, if you please ! " Then becoming angry, small as he
was, and almost threatening :

" Come, now, will you take away your foot? Why don't you
take away your foot? "

" Ah I you here yet I " said Jean Valjean, and rising hastily
to his feet, without releasing the piece of money, he added:
" You'd better take care of yourself! "

The boy looked at him in terror, then began to tremble from
head to foot, and after a few seconds of stupor, took to flight and
ran with all his might without daring to turn his head or to utter
a cry.

At a little distance, however, he stopped for want of breath,
and Jean Valjean in his reverie heard him sobbing*

In a few minutes the boy was gone.

The sun had gone down.

The shadows were deepening around Jean Valjean. He had
not eaten during the day; probably he had some fever.

He had remained standing, and had not change his attitude
since the child fled. His breathing was at long and unequal
intervals. His eyes were fixed on a spot ten or twelve steps
before him, and seemed to be studying with profound atten-
tion the form of an old piece of blue crockery that was lying in
the grass. All at once he shivered; he began to feel the cold
night air.

He pulled his cap down over his forehead, sought mechanically
to fold and button his blouse around him, stepped forward and
stooped to pick up his stick.

At that instant he perceived the forty-sous piece which his
foot had half buried in the ground, and which glistened among
the pebbles. It was like an electric shock. " What is that? "
said he, between his teeth* He drew back a step or two, then
stopped without the power to withdraw his gaze from this
point which his foot had covered the instant before, as if the
thing that glistened there in the obscurity had been an open eye
fixed upon him.

After a few minutes, he sprang convulsively towards the piece of
money, seized it, and, rising, looked away over the plain, straining
his eyes towards all points of the horizon, standing and trembling
like a frightened deer which is seeking a place of refuge.

He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and
bare, thick purple mists were rising in the glimmering twilight.

He said: " Ohl" and began to walk rapidly in the direction

1 06 Les Miserables

in which the child had gone. After some thirty steps, he
stopped, looked about, and saw nothing.

Then he called with all his might " Petit Gervais ! Petit
Gervais!"

And then he listened.

There was no answer.

The country was desolate and gloomy. On all sides was
space. There was nothing about him but a shadow in which his
gaze was lost, and a silence in which his voice was lost.

A biting norther was blowing, which gave a kind of dismal
life to everything about him. The bushes shook their little
thin arms with an incredible fury. One would have said that
they were threatening and pursuing somebody.

He began to walk again, then quickened his pace to a run,
and from time to time stopped and called out in that solitude,
in a most desolate and terrible voice :

" Petit Gervais ! Petit Gervais ! "

Surely, if the child had heard him, he would have been
frightened, and would have hid himself. But doubtless the
boy was already far away.

He met a priest on horseback. He went up to him and said :

" Monsieur cure, have you seen a child go by? "

" No," said the priest.

" Petit Gervais was his name? "

" I have seen nobody."

He took two five-franc pieces from his bag, and gave them
to the priest.

" Monsieur cure, this is for your poor. Monsieur cure, he is
a little fellow, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and
a hurdygurdy. He went this way. One of these Savoyards,
you know? "

" I have not seen him."

" Petit Gervais? is his village near here? can you tell me? "

" If it be as you say, my friend, the little fellow is a foreigner.
They roam about this country. Nobody knows them."

Jean Valjean hastily took out two more five-franc pieces, and
gave them to the priest.

" For your poor," said he.

Then he added wildly :

" Monsieur abbe, have me arrested. I am a robber."

The priest put spurs to his horse, and fled in great fear.

Jean Valjean began to run again in the direction which he
had first taken.

Fantine 107

He went on in this wise for a considerable distance, looking
around, calling and shouting, but met nobody else. Two or
three times he left the path to look at what seemed to be some-
body lying down or crouching; it was only low bushes or rocks.
Finally, at a place where three paths met, he stopped. The
moon had risen. He strained his eyes in the distance, and
called out once more " Petit Gervais ! Petit Gervais I Petit
Gervais ! " His cries died away into the mist, without even
awakening an echo. Again he murmured: " Petit Gervais! "
but with a feeble, and almost inarticulate voice. That was his
last effort ; his knees suddenly bent under him, as if an invisible
power overwhelmed him at a blow, with the weight of his bad
conscience; he fell exhausted upon a great stone, his hands
clenched in his hair, and his face on his knees, and exclaimed:
" What a wretch I am ! "

Then his heart swelled, and he burst into tears. It was the
first time he had wept for nineteen years.

When Jean Valjean left the bishop's house, as we have seen,
his mood was one that he had never known before. He could
understand nothing of what was passing within him. He set
himself stubbornly in opposition to the angelic deeds and the
gentle words of the old man, " you have promised me to become
an honest man. I am purchasing your soul, I withdraw it from
the spirit of perversity, and I give it to God Almighty." This
came back to him incessantly. To this celestial tenderness,
he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil in man. He felt
dimly that the pardon of this priest was the hardest assault, and
the most formidable attack which he had yet sustained; that
his hardness of heart would be complete, if it resisted this kind-
ness; that if he yielded, he must renounce that hatred with
which the acts of other men had for so many years filled his
soul, and in which he found satisfaction; that, this time, he
must conquer or be conquered, and that the struggle, a gigantic
and decisive struggle, had begun between his own wickedness,
and the goodness of this man.

In view of all these things, he moved like a drunken man.
While thus walking on with haggard look, had he a distinct per-
ception of what might be to him the result of his adventure at

D ? Did he hear those mysterious murmurs which warn

or entreat the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice
whisper in his ear that he had just passed through the decisive
hour of his destiny, that there was no longer a middle course
for him, that if, thereafter, he should not be the best of men, he

io8 Les Miserables

would be the worst, that he must now, so to speak, mount
higher than the bishop, or fall lower than the galley slave ; that,
if he would become good, he must become an angel; that, if he
would remain wicked, he must become a monster?

Here we must again ask those questions, which we have
already proposed elsewhere: was some confused shadow of all
this formed in his mind? Certainly, misfortune, we have said,
draws out the intelligence; it is doubtful, however, if Jean
Valjean was in a condition to discern all that we here point out.
If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught a glimpse, he did
not see ; and the only effect was to throw him into an inexpres-
sible and distressing confusion. Being just out of that mis-
shapen and gloomy thing which is called the galleys, the bishop
had hurt his soul, as a too vivid light would have hurt his eyes
on coming out of the dark. The future life, the possible life that
was offered to him thenceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him
with trembling and anxiety. He no longer knew really where
he was. Like an owl who should see the sun suddenly rise, the
convict had been dazzled and blinded by virtue.

One thing was certain, nor did he himself doubt it, that he
was no longer the same man, that all was changed in him, that
it was no longer in his power to prevent the bishop from having
talked to him and having touched him.

In this frame of mind, he had met Petit Gervais, and stolen his
forty sous. Why? He could not have explained it, surely;
was it the final effect, the final effort of the evil thoughts he had
brought from the galleys, a remnant of impulse, a result of what
is called in physics acquired force ? It was that, and it was also
perhaps even less than that. We will say plainly, it was not he
who had stolen, it was not the man, it was the beast which, from
habit and instinct, had stupidly set its foot upon that money,
while the intellect was struggling in the midst of so many new
and unknown influences. When the intellect awoke and saw
this act of the brute, Jean Valjean recoiled in anguish and
uttered a cry of horror.

It was a strange phenomenon, possible only in the condition
in which he then was, but the fact is, that in stealing this money
from that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer
capable.

However that may be, this last misdeed had a decisive effect
upon him; it rushed across the chaos of his intellect and dis-
sipated it, set the light on one side and the dark clouds on
the other, and acted upon his soul, in the condition it was in,

Fantine 1 09

as certain chemical re-agents act upon a turbid mixture, by
precipitating one element and producing a clear solution of
the other.

At first, even before self-examination and reflection, dis-
tractedly, like one who seeks to escape, he endeavoured to find
the boy to give him back his money ; then, when he found that
that was useless and impossible, he stopped in despair. At the
very moment when he exclaimed: " What a wretch I am! " he
saw himself as he was, and was already so far separated from
himself that it seemed to him that he was only a phantom, and
that he had there before him, in flesh and bone, with his stick in
his hand, his blouse on his back, his knapsack filled with stolen
articles on his shoulders, with his stern and gloomy face, and
his thoughts full of abominable projects, the hideous galley
slave, Jean Valjean.

Excess of misfortune, we have remarked, had made him, in
some sort, a visionary. This then was like a vision. He
veritably saw this Jean Valjean, this ominous face, before him.
He was on the point of asking himself who that man was, and
he was horror-stricken by it.

His brain was in one of those violent, and yet frightfully calm,
conditions where reverie is so profound that it swallows up
reality. We no longer see the objects that are before us, but
we see, as if outside of ourselves, the forms that we have in our
minds.

He beheld himself then, so to speak, face to face, and at the
same time, across that hallucination, he saw, at a mysterious
distance, a sort of light which he took at first to be a torch.
Examining more attentively this light which dawned upon his
conscience, he recognised that it had a human form, and that
this torch was the bishop.

His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed
before it, the bishop and Jean Valjean. Anything less than
the first would have failed to soften the second. By one of
those singular effects which are peculiar to this kind of ecstasy, as
his reverie continued, the bishop grew grander and more re-
splendent in his eyes; Jean Valjean shrank and faded away.
At one moment he was but a shadow. Suddenly he disappeared.
The bishop alone remained.

He filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magni-
ficent radiance.

Jean Valjean wept long. He shed hot tears, he wept bitterly,

iio Les Miserables

with more weakness than a woman, with more terror than a
child.

While he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his
mind — an extraordinary light, a light at once transporting and
terrible. His past life, his first offence, his long expiation, his
brutal exterior, his hardened interior, his release made glad by so
many schemes of vengeance, what had happened to him at the
bishop's, his last action, this theft of forty sous from a child, a
crime the meaner and the more monstrous that it came after the
bishop's pardon, all this returned and appeared to him, clearly,
but in a light that he had never seen before. He beheld his life,
and it seemed to him horrible; his soul, and it seemed to him
frightful. There was, however, a softened light upon that life
and upon that soul. It seemed to him that he was looking upon
Satan by the light of Paradise.

How long did he weep thus? What did he do after weeping?
Where did he go? Nobody ever knew. It is known simply
that, on that very night, the stage-driver who drove at that time

on the Grenoble route, and arrived at D about three o'clock

in the morning, saw, as he passed through the bishop's street.
a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling upon the pavement in
the shadow, before the door of Monseigneur Bienvenu,

BOOK THIRD— IN THE YEAR 1817

THE YEAR 1817

THE year 1817 was that which Louis XVIII., with a certain
royal assumption not devoid of stateliness, styled the twenty-
second year of his reign. It was the year when M. Bruguiere de
Sorsum was famous. All the hair-dressers' shops, hoping for
the return of powder and birds of Paradise, were bedizened with
azure and fleurs-de-lis. It was the honest time when Count
Lynch sat every Sunday as churchwarden on the official bench
at Saint Germain des Pres, in the dress of a peer of France, with
his red ribbon and long nose, and that majesty of profile peculiar
to a man who has done a brilliant deed. The brilliant deed
committed by M. Lynch was that, being mayor of Bordeaux on
the i2th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a little too
soon to the Duke of Angouleme. Hence his peerage. In 1817 it
was the fashion to swallow up little boys from four to six years
old in great morocco caps with ears, strongly resembling the
chimney-pots of the Esquimaux. The French army was dressed
in white after the Austrian style; regiments were called legions,
and wore, instead of numbers, the names of the departments.
Napoleon was at St Helena, and as England would not give him
green cloth, had had his old coats turned. In 1817, Pellegrini
sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; Odry
was not yet in existence. Madame Saqui succeeded to Forioso.
There were Prussians still in France. M. Delalot was a per-
sonage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the
fist and then the head of Pleignier, Carbonneau, and Tolleron.
Prince Talleyrand, the grand chamberlain, and Abbe Louis, the
designated minister of the finances, looked each other in the
face, laughing like two augurs ; both had celebrated the mass of
the Federation in the Champ-de-Mars on i4th of July, 1790;
Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served him as deacon.
In 1817, in the cross-walks of this same Champ-de-Mars, were
seen huge wooden cylinders, painted blue, with traces of eagles
and bees, that had lost their gilding, lying in the rain, and rotting

1 1 2 Les Miserables

in the grass. These were the columns which, two years before,
had supported the estrade of the emperor in the Champ-de-
Mai. They were blackened here and there from the bivouac-
fires of the Austrians in barracks near the Gros-Caillou. Two
or three of these columns had disappeared in the fires of these
bivouacs, and had warmed the huge hands of the kaiserlics.
The Champ-de-Mai was remarkable from the fact of having been
held in the month of June, and on the Champ-de-Mars. In the
year 1817, two things were popular — Voltaire-Touquet and
Chartist snuff-boxes. The latest Parisian sensation was the
crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's head into the
fountain of the Marche-aux-Fleurs. People were beginning to
find fault with the minister of the navy for having no news of
that fated frigate, La Meduse, which was to cover Chaumareix
with shame, and Gericault with glory. Colonel Selves went to
Egypt, there to become Soliman-Pacha. The palace of the
Thermes, Rue de La Harpe, was turned into a cooper's shop.
On the platform of the octagonal tower of the hotel de Cluny,
the little board shed was still to be seen, which had served as
observatory to Messier, the astronomer of the navy under Louis
XVI. The Duchess of Duras read to three or four friends, in
her boudoir, furnished in sky-blue satin, the manuscript of
Ourika. The N's were erased from the Louvre. The bridge of
Austerlitz abdicated its name, and became the bridge of the
Jardin-du-Roi, an enigma which disguised at once the bridge of
Austerlitz and the Jardin-des-Plantes. Louis XVIII., absently
annotating Horace with his* finger-nail while thinking about
heroes that had become emperors, and shoemakers that had
become dauphins, had two cares, Napoleon and Mathurin
Bruneau. The French Academy gave as a prize theme, The
happiness which Study procures. M. Bellart was eloquent,
officially. In his shadow was seen taking root the future
Attorney-General, de Broe, promised to the sarcasms of Paul
Louis Courier. There was a counterfeit Chauteaubriand called
Marchangy, as there was to be later a counterfeit Marchangy
called d'Arlincourt, Claire d'Albe and Malek Adel were master-
pieces ; Madame Cottin was declared the first writer of the age.
The Institute struck from its list the academician, Napoleon
Bonaparte. A royal ordinance established a naval school at
Angouleme, for the Duke of Angouleme being Grand Admiral,
it was evident that the town of Angouleme had by right all the
qualities of a seaport, without which the monarchical principle
would have been assailed. The question whether the pictures,

Fantine 1 1 3

representing acrobats, which spiced the placards of Franconi,
and drew together the blackguards of the streets, should be
tolerated, was agitated in the cabinet councils. M. Paer, the
author of L'Agnese, an honest man with square jaws and a wart
on his cheek, directed the small, select concerts of the Mar-
chioness de Sassenaye, Rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. All the young
girls sang I'Ermite de Saint Avelle, words by Edmond Geraud.
The Nain jaune was transformed into the Miroir. The Caf6
Lemblin stood out for the emperor in opposition to the Caf6
Valois, which was in favour of the Bourbons. A marriage had
just been made up with a Sicilian princess for the Duke of Berry,
who was already in reality regarded with suspicion by Louvel.
Madame de Stael had been dead a year. Mademoiselle Mars
was hissed by the body-guards. The great journals were all
small. The form was limited, but the liberty was large. Lc
Constitutionnel was constitutional; La Minerve called Chateau-
briand, Chateaubriant. This excited great laughter among the
citizens at the expense of the great writer.

In purchased journals, prostituted journalists insulted the
outlaws of 1815; David no longer had talent, Arnault no longer
had ability, Carnot no longer had probity, Soult had never
gained a victory; it is true that Napoleon no longer had genius.
Everybody knows that letters sent through the post to an exile
rarely reach their destination, the police making it a religious
duty to intercept them. This fact is by no means a new one;
Descartes complained of it in his banishment. Now, David
having shown some feeling in a Belgian journal at not receiving
the letters addressed to him, this seemed ludicrous to the royalist
papers, who seized the occasion to ridicule the exile. To say,
regicides instead of voters, enemies instead of allies, Napoleon
instead of Buonaparte, separated two men more than an abyss.
All people of common sense agreed that the era of revolutions
had been for ever closed by King Louis XVIII., surnamed " The
immortal author of the Charter." At the terreplain of the Pont
Neuf, the word Redivivus was sculptured on the pedestal which
awaited the statue of Henri IV. M. Piet at Rue Th£rese, No. 4,
was sketching the plan of his cabal to consolidate the monarchy.
The leaders of the Right said, in grave dilemmas, " We must
write to Bacol." Messrs. Canuel O'Mahony and Chappedelaine
made a beginning, not altogether without the approbation of
Monsieur, of what was afterwards to become the " conspiracy of
the Bord de 1'Eau." L'Epingle Noire plotted on its side;
Delaverderie held interviews with Trogoff; M. Decazes, a mind

114 Les Miserables

in some degree liberal, prevailed. Chateaubriand, standing
every morning at his window in the Rue Saint Dominique, No.
27, in stocking pantaloons and slippers, his grey hair covered
with a Madras handkerchief, a mirror before his eyes, and a
complete case of dental instruments open before him, cleaned
his teeth, which were excellent, while dictating La Monarchic
selon la Charts to M. Pilorge, his secretary. The critics in
authority preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Feletz signed him-
self A. ; M. Hoffman signed himself Z. Charles Nodier was writing
Therese Aubert. Divorce was abolished. The lyceums called
themselves colleges. The students, decorated on the collar
with a golden fleur-de-lis, pommelled each other over the King
of Rome. The secret police of the palace denounced to her
royal highness, Madame, the portrait of the Duke of Orleans,
which was everywhere to be seen, and which looked better in the
uniform of colonel-general of hussars than the Duke of Berry in
the uniform of colonel-general of dragoons — a serious matter.
The city of Paris regilded the dome of the Invalides at its
expense. Grave citizens asked each other what M. de Trinque-
lague would do in such or such a case; M. Clausel de Mentals
differed on sundry points from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M.
de Salaberry was not satisfied. Comedy-writer Picard, of the
Academy to which comedy-writer Moliere could not belong, had
Les deux Philiberts played at the Odeon, on the pediment of
which, the removal of the letters still permitted the inscription
to be read distinctly: THEATRE DE L'!MPERATRICE. People
took sides for or against Cugnet de Montarlot. Fabvier was
factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The bookseller Pelicier
published an edition of Voltaire under the title, Works of
Voltaire, of the French Academy. " That will attract buyers."
said the naive publisher. The general opinion was that M.
Charles Loyson would be the genius of the age; envy was
beginning to nibble at him, a sign of glory, and the line was
made on him —

" M£me quand Loyson. vole, on sent qu'il a despattes."

Cardinal Fesch refusing to resign, Monsieur de Pins, Arch-
bishop of Amasie, administered the diocese of Lyons. The
quarrel of the Vallee des Dappes commenced between France
and Switzerland by a memorial from Captain, afterwards
General Dufour. Saint-Simon, unknown, was building up his
sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier in the Academy
of Sciences whom posterity has forgotten, and an obscure

Fantine 115

Fourier in some unknown garret whom the future will re-
member. Lord Byron was beginning to dawn; a note to a
poem of Millevoye introduced him to France as a certain Lord
Baron. David d'Angers was endeavouring to knead marble.
The Abbe Caron spoke with praise, in a small party of Semin-
arists in the cul-de-sac of the Feuillantines, of an unknown
priest, Felicite Robert by name, who was afterwards Lamennais.
A thing which smoked and clacked on the Seine, making the
noise of a swimming dog, went and came beneath the windows
of the Tuileries, from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV.;
it was a piece of mechanism of no great value, a sort of toy, the
day-dream of a visionary inventor, a Utopia — a steamboat.
The Parisians looked upon the useless thing with indifference.
Monsieur Vaublanc, wholesale reformer of the Institute by
royal ordinance and distinguished author of several academicians,
after having made them, could not make himself one. The
Faubourg Saint-Germain and the Pavilion Marsan desired
Monsieur Delaveau for prefect of police, on account of his piety.
Dupuytren and Recamier quarrelled in the amphitheatre of the
Ecole de Medicine, and shook their fists in each other's faces,
over the divinity of Christ. Cuvier, with one eye on the book
of Genesis and the other on nature, was endeavouring to please
the bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and making
the mastodons support Moses. Monsieur Francois de Neuf-
chateau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory of Par-
mentier, was making earnest efforts to have pomme de terre
pronounced -parmentiere, without success. Abbe Gregoire, ex-
bishop, ex-member of the National Convention, and ex-senator,
had passed to the condition of the " infamous Gregoire," in
royalist polemics. The expression which we have just employed,
" passed to the condition," was denounced as a neologism by
Monsieur Royer-Collard. The new stone could still be dis-
tinguished by its whiteness under the third arch of the bridge
of Jena, which, two years before, had been used to stop up the
entrance of the mine bored by Bliicher to blow up the bridge.
Justice summoned to her bar a man who had said aloud,
on seeing Count d'Artois entering Notre-Dame, "Sapristi! I
regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma entering the
Bal-Sauvage, arm in arm." Seditious language. Six months'
imprisonment.

Traitors showed themselves stripped even of hypocrisy; men
who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of a battle made no
concealment of their bribes, and shamelessly walked abroad in

1 1 6 Les Miserables

daylight in the cynicism of wealth and dignities; deserters of
Ligny and Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of their purchased
shame, exposed the nakedness of their devotion to monarchy,
forgetting the commonest requirements of public decency.

Such was the confused mass of events that floated pell-mell
on the surface of the year 1817, and is now forgotten. History
neglects almost all these peculiarities, nor can it do otherwise;
it is under the dominion of infinity. Nevertheless, these details,
which are wrongly called little — there are neither little facts in
humanity nor little leaves in vegetation — are useful. The
physiognomy of the years makes up the face of the century.

In this year, 1817, four young Parisians played " a good
farce."

DOUBLE QUATUOR

THESE Parisians were, one from Toulouse, another from
Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Mont-
auban; but they were students, and to say student is to say
Parisian; to study in Paris is to be born in Paris.

These young men were remarkable for nothing; everybody
has seen such persons; the four first comers will serve as samples ;
neither good nor bad, neither learned nor ignorant, neither
talented nor stupid; handsome in that charming April of life
which we call twenty. They were four Oscars ; for at this time,
Arthurs were not yet in existence. Burn the perfumes of Arabia
in his honour, exclaims the romance. Oscar approaches I Oscar,
I am about to see him I Ossian was in fashion, elegance was
Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English did not prevail
till later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just
won the victory of Waterloo.

The first of these Oscars was called F61ix Tholomyes, of
Toulouse; the second, Listolier, of Cahors; the third, Fameuil,
of Limoges; and the last, Blacheville, of Montauban. Of course
each had his mistress. Blacheville loved Favourite, so called,
because she had been in England; Listolier adored Dahlia,
who had taken the name of a flower as her nom de guerre ;
Fameuil idolised Zephine, the diminutive of Josephine, and
Tholomyes had Fantine, called the Blond, on account of her
beautiful hair, the colour of the sun. Favourite, Dahlia,
Zephine, and Fantine were four enchanting girls, perfumed and

Fantine 117

sparkling, something of workwomen still, since they had not
wholly given up the needle, agitated by love-affairs, yet pre-
serving on their countenances a remnant of the serenity of
labour, and in their souls that flower of purity, which in woman
survives the first fall. One of the four was called the child,
because she was the youngest; and another was called the old
one — the Old One was twenty-three. To conceal nothing, the
three first were more experienced, more careless, and better
versed in the ways of the world than Fantine, the Blond, who
was still in her first illusion.

Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite especially, could not say as
much. There had been already more than one episode in their
scarcely commenced romance, and the lover called Adolphe in
the first chapter, was found as Alphonse in the second, and
Gustave in the third. Poverty and coquetry are fatal coun-
sellors; the one grumbles, the other flatters, and the beautiful
daughters of the people have both whispering in their ear, each
on its side. Their ill-guarded souls listen. Thence their fall,
and the stones that are cast at them. They are overwhelmed
with the splendour of all that is immaculate and inaccessible.
Alas ! was the Jungf rau ever hungry ?

Favourite, having been in England, was the admiration of
Zephine and Dahlia. She had had at a very early age a home
of her own. Her father was a brutal, boasting old professor of
mathematics, never married, and a rake, despite his years.
When young, he one day saw the dress of a chambermaid catch
in the fender, and fell in love through the accident. Favourite
was the result. Occasionally she met her father, who touched
his hat to her. One morning, an old woman with a fanatical
air entered her rooms, and asked, " you do not know me, made-
moiselle? " — "No." — " I am your mother." — The old woman
directly opened the buffet, ate and drank her fill, sent for a bed
that she had, and made herself at home. This mother was a
devotee and a grumbler ; she never spoke to Favourite, remained
for hours without uttering a word, breakfasted, dined and supped
for four, and went down to the porter's lodge to see visitors and
talk ill of her daughter.

What had attracted Dahlia to Listolier, to others perhaps, to
indolence, was her beautiful, rosy finger-nails. How could such
nails work ! She who will remain virtuous must have no com-
passion for her hands. As to Zephine, she had conquered
Fameuil by her rebellious yet caressing little way of saying
" yes, sir."

1 1 8 Les Miserables

The young men were comrades, the young girls were friends.
Such loves are always accompanied by such friendships.

Wisdom and philosophy are two things; a proof of which is
that, with all necessary reservations for these little, irregular
households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia, were philosophic,
and Fantine was wise.

"Wise!" you will say, and Tholomyes? Solomon would
answer that love is a part of wisdom. We content ourselves with
saying that the love of Fantine was a first, an only, a faithful
love.

She was the only one of the four who had been petted by
but one.

Fantine was one of those beings which are brought forth from
the heart of the people. Sprung from the most unfathomable
depths of social darkness, she bore on her brow the mark of the

anonymous and unknown. She was born at M on M .

Who were her parents ? None could tell, she had never known
either father or mother. She was called Fantine — why so?
because she had never been known by any other name. At the
time of her birth, the Directory was still in existence. She could
have no family name, for she had no family ; she could have no
baptismal name, for then there was no church. She was named
after the pleasure of the first passer-by who found her, a mere
infant, straying barefoot in the streets. She received a name
as she received the water from the clouds on her head when it
rained. She was called little Fantine. Nobody knew anything
more of her. Such was the manner in which this human being
had come into life. At the age of ten, Fantine left the city and
went to service among the farmers of the suburbs. At fifteen,
she came to Paris, to " seek her fortune." Fantine was beauti-
ful and remained pure as long as she could. She was a pretty
blonde with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry;
but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth.

She worked to live; then, also to live, for the heart too has
its hunger, she loved.

She loved Tholomyes.

To him, it was an amour; to her a passion. The streets of
the Latin Quarter, which swarm with students and grisettes,
saw the beginning of this dream. Fantine, in those labyrinths
of the hill of the Pantheon, where so many ties are knotted and
unloosed, long fled from Tholomyes, but in such a way as always
to meet him again. There is a way of avoiding a person which
resembles a search. In short, the eclogue took place.

Famine 1 1 9

Blacheville, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of
which Tholomye"s was the head. He was the wit of the company.

Tholomy£s was an old student of the old style; he was rich,
having an income of four thousand francs — a splendid scandal
on the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve. He was a good liver, thirty
years old, and ill preserved. He was wrinkled, his teeth were
broken, and he was beginning to show signs of baldness, of
which he said, gaily: " The head at thirty, the knees at forty."
His digestion was not good, and he had a weeping eye. But
in proportion as his youth died out, his gaiety increased; he
replaced his teeth by jests, his hair by joy, his health by irony,
and his weeping eye was always laughing. He was dilapidated,
but covered with flowers. His youth, decamping long before its
time, was beating a retreat in good order, bursting with laughter,
and displaying no loss of fire. He had had a piece refused at the
Vaudeville; he made verses now and then on any subject;
moreover, he doubted everything with an air of superiority — a
great power in the eyes of the weak. So, being bald and
ironical, he was the chief. Can the word iron be the root from
which irony is derived?

One day, Tholomyes took the other three aside, and said to
them with an oracular gesture :

" For nearly a year, Fantine, Dahlia, Ze"phine, and Favourite
have been asking us to give them a surprise ; we have solemnly
promised them one. They are constantly reminding us of it,
me especially. Just as the old women at Naples cry to Saint
January, ' Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo, yellow face, do your
miracle,' our pretty ones are always saying : ' Tholomyes, when
are you going to be delivered of your surprise ? ' At the same
time our parents are writing for us. Two birds with one stone.
It seems to me the time has come. Let us talk it over."

Upon this, Tholomyes lowered his voice, and mysteriously
articulated something so ludicrous that a prolonged and enthu-
siastic giggling arose from the four throats at once, and Blache-
ville exclaimed: " What an idea! "

An ale-house, filled with smoke, was before them; they
entered, and the rest of their conference was lost in its shade.

The result of this mystery was a brilliant pleasure party,
which took place on the following Sunday, the four young men
inviting the four young girls.

I2O Les Miserables

III

FOUR TO FOUR

IT is difficult to picture to one's self, at this day, a country party
of students and grisettes as it was forty-five years ago. Paris
has no longer the same environs; the aspect of what we might
call circum-Parisian life has completely changed in half a
century; in place of the rude, one-horse chaise, we have now
the railroad car; in place of the pinnace, we have now the steam-
boat; we say Fecamp to-day, as we then said Saint Cloud.
The Paris of 1862 is a city which has France for its suburbs.

The four couples scrupulously accomplished all the country
follies then possible. It was in the beginning of the holidays,
and a warm, clear summer's day. The night before, Favourite,
the only one who knew how to write, had written to Tholomyes
in the name of the four : " It is lucky to go out early." For this
reason, they rose at five in the morning. Then they went to
Saint Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and ex-
claimed: " How beautiful it must be when there is any water ! "
breakfasted at the Tete Noire, which Castaing had not yet passed,
amused themselves with a game of rings at the quincunx of the
great basin, ascended to Diogenes' lantern, played roulette with
macaroons on the Sevres bridge, gathered bouquets at Puteaux,
bought reed pipes at Neuilly, ate apple puffs everywhere, and
were perfectly happy <

The young girls rattled and chattered like uncaged warblers.
They were delirious with joy. Now and then they would
playfully box the ears of the young men. Intoxication of the
morning of life ! Adorable years ! The wing of the dragon-fly
trembles 1 Oh, ye, whoever you may be, have you memories
of the past? Have you walked in the brushwood, thrusting
aside the branches for the charming head behind you? Have
you glided laughingly down some slope wet with rain, with the
woman of your love, who held you back by the hand, exclaiming :
" Oh, my new boots ! what a condition they are in! "

Let us hasten to say that that joyous annoyance, a shower,
was wanting to this good-natured company, although Favourite
had said, on setting out, with a magisterial and maternal air:
" The snails are crawling in the paths. A sign of rain, children."

All four were ravishingly beautiful. A good old classic poet,
then in renown, a good man who had an Eleanore, the Chevalier
de Labouisse, who was walking that day under the chestnut trees

Fantine 1 2 1

of Saint Cloud, saw them pass about ten o'clock in the morning,
and exclaimed, thinking of the Graces: "There is one too
many ! " Favourite, the friend of Blacheville, the Old One oi
twenty-three, ran forward under the broad green branches,
leaped across ditches, madly sprang over bushes, and took the
lead in the gaiety with the verve of a young faun. Zephine and
Dahlia, whom chance had endowed with a kind of beauty that
was heightened and perfected by contrast, kept together through
the instinct of coquetry still more than through friendship, and,
leaning on each other, affected English attitudes ; the first keep-
sakes had just appeared, melancholy was in vogue for women,
as Byronism was afterwards for men, and the locks of the tender
sex were beginning to fall dishevelled. Zephine and Dahlia
wore their hair in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, engaged in a
discussion on their professors, explained to Fantine the differ-
ence between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau.

Blacheville seemed to have been created expressly to carry
Favourite's dead-leaf coloured shawl upon his arm on Sunday.

Tholomyes followed, ruling, presiding over the group. He
was excessively gay, but one felt the governing power in him.
There was dictatorship in his joviality; his principal adornment
was a pair of nankeen pantaloons, cut in the elephant-leg
fashion, with under-stockings of copper-coloured braid ; he had
a huge ratten, worth two hundred francs, in his hand, and as he
denied himself nothing, a strange thing called cigar in his mouth.
Nothing being sacred to him, he was smoking.

" This Tholomyes is astonishing," said the others, with venera-
tion. " What pantaloons ! what energy ! "

As to Fantine, she was joy itself. Her splendid teeth had
evidently been endowed by God with one function — that of
laughing. She carried in her hand rather than on her head, her
little hat of sewed straw, with long, white strings. Her thick
blond tresses, inclined to wave, and easily escaping from their
confinement, obliging her to fasten them continually, seemed
designed for the flight of Galatea under the willows. Her rosy
lips babbled with enchantment. The corners of her mouth,
turned up voluptuously like the antique masks of Erigone,
seemed to encourage audacity ; but her long, shadowy eyelashes
were cast discreetly down towards the lower part of her face as
if to check its festive tendencies. Her whole toilette was inde-
scribably harmonious and enchanting. She wore a dress of
mauve barege, little reddish-brown buskins, the strings of which
were crossed over her fine, white, open-worked stockings, and

I 22 Les Miserables

that species of spencer, invented at Marseilles, the name of
which, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout in the
Canebiere dialect, signifies fine weather, warmth, and noon.
The three others, less timid as we have said, wore low-necked
dresses, which in summer, beneath bonnets covered with
flowers, are full of grace and allurement; but by the side of this
daring toilette, the canezou of the blond Fantine, with its trans-
parencies, indiscretions, and concealments, at once hiding and
disclosing, seemed a provoking godsend of decency; and the
famous court of love, presided over by the Viscountess de Cette,
with the sea-green eyes, would probably have given the prize
for coquetry to this canezou, which had entered the lists for
that of modesty. The simplest is sometimes the wisest. So
things go.

A brilliant face, delicate profile, eyes of a deep blue, heavy
eyelashes, small, arching feet, the wrists and ankles neatly
encased, the white skin showing here and there the azure
arborescence of the veins; a cheek small and fresh, a neck
robust as that of Egean Juno, the nape firm and supple, shoulders
modelled as if by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the
centre, just visible through the muslin ; a gaiety tempered with
reverie, sculptured and exquisite — such was Fantine, and you
divined beneath this dress and these ribbons a statue, and in
this statue a soul.

Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it.
Those rare dreamers, the mysterious priests of the beautiful,
who silently compare all things with perfection, would have
had a dim vision in this little work-woman, through the trans-
parency of Parisian grace, of the ancient sacred Euphony. This
daughter of obscurity had race. She possessed both types of
beauty — style and rhythm. Style is the force of the ideal,
rhythm is its movement.

We have said that Fantine was joy; Fantine also was modesty.

For an observer who had studied her attentively would have
found through all this intoxication of age, of season, and of love,
an unconquerable expression of reserve and modesty. She was
somewhat restrained. This chaste restraint is the shade which
separates Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long, white,
slender fingers of the vestals that stir the ashes of the sacred fire
with a golden rod. Although she would have refused nothing
to Tholomyes, as might be seen but too well, her face, in repose,
was in the highest degree maidenly; a kind of serious and almost
austere dignity suddenly possessed it at times, and nothing

Fantinc 123

could be more strange or disquieting than to see gaiety vanish
there so quickly, and reflection instantly succeed to delight.
This sudden seriousness, sometimes strangely marked, resembled
the disdain of a goddess. Her forehead, nose, and chin pre-
sented that equilibrium of line, quite distinct from the equili-
brium of proportion, which produces harmony of features; in
the characteristic interval which separates the base of the nose
from the upper lip, she had that almost imperceptible but
charming fold, the mysterious sign of chastity, which enamoured
Barbarossa with a Diana, found in the excavations of Iconium.
Love is a fault; be it so. Fantine was innocence floating upon
the surface of this fault.

THOLOMYES IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH
SONG

THAT day was sunshine from one end to the other. All nature
seemed to be out on a holiday. The parterres of Saint Cloud
were balmy with perfumes; the breeze from the Seine gently
waved the leaves; the boughs were gesticulating in the wind;
the bees were pillaging the jessamine; a whole crew of butter-
flies had settled in the milfoil, clover, and wild oats. The
august park of the King of France was invaded by a swarm of
vagabonds, the birds.

The four joyous couples shone resplendently in concert with
the sunshine, the flowers, the fields, and the trees.

And in this paradisaical community, speaking, singing,
running, dancing, chasing butterflies, gathering bindweed,
wetting their open-worked stocking in the high grass, fresh,
wild, but not wicked, stealing kisses from each other indis-
criminately now and then, all except Fantine, who was shut up
in her vague, dreary, severe resistance, and who was in love.
" You always have the air of being out of sorts," said Favourite
to her.

These are true pleasures. These passages in the lives of happy
couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and call forth
endearment and light from everything. There was once upon
a time a fairy, who created meadows and trees expressly for
lovers. Hence comes that eternal school among the groves for
lovers, which is always opening, and which will last so long as
there are thickets and pupils. Hence comes the popularity of

124 Les Miserables

spring among thinkers. The patrician and the knife-grinder, the
duke and peer, and the peasant, the men of the court, and the
men of the town, as was said in olden times, all are subjects of
this fairy. They laugh, they seek each other, the air seems
filled with a new brightness ; what a transfiguration is it to love !
Notary clerks are gods. And the little shrieks, the pursuits
among the grass, the waists encircled by stealth, that jargon
which is melody, that adoration which breaks forth in a syllable,
those cherries snatched from one pair of lips by another — all
kindle up, and become transformed into celestial glories.
Beautiful girls lavish their charms with sweet prodigality.
We fancy that it will never end. Philosophers, poets, painters
behold these ecstasies and know not what to make of them.
So dazzling are they. The departure for Cythera! exclaims
Watteau ; Lancret, the painter of the commonalty, contemplates
his bourgeois soaring in the sky; Diderot stretches out his arms
to all these loves, and d'Urfe associates them with the Druids.

After breakfast, the four couples went to see, in what was then
called the king's square, a plant newly arrived from the Indies,
the name of which escapes us at present, and which at this time
was attracting all Paris to Saint Cloud: it was a strange and
beautiful shrub with a long stalk, the innumerable branches of
which, fine as threads, tangled, and leafless, were covered with
millions of little, white blossoms, which gave it the appearance of
flowing hair, powdered with flowers. There was always a crowd
admiring it.

When they had viewed the shrub, Tholomyes exclaimed, " I
propose donkeys," and making a bargain with a donkey-driver,
they returned through Vanvres and Issy. At Issy, they had
an adventure. The park, Bien-National, owned at this time by
the commissary Bourguin, was by sheer good luck open. They
passed through the grating, visited the mannikin anchorite in
his grotto, and tried the little, mysterious effects of the famous
cabinet of mirrors — a wanton trap, worthy of a satyr become
a millionaire, or Turcaret metamorphosed into Priapus. They
swung stoutly in the great swing, attached to the two chestnut
trees, celebrated by the Abb6 de Bernis. While swinging the
girls, one after the other, and making folds of flying crinoline
that Greuze would have found worth his study, the Toulousian
Tholomyes, who was something of a Spaniard — Toulouse is
cousin to Tolosa — sang in a melancholy key, the old gallega
song, probably inspired by some beautiful damsel swinging in
the air between two trees.

Fantine 125

Soy de Badajoz.
Amor me llama.
Toda mi alma
Es en mi ojos
Porque ensenas
A tus piernas.

Fantine alone refused to swing.

" I do not like this sort of airs," murmured Favourite, rather
sharply.

They left the donkeys for a new pleasure, crossed the Seine in
a boat, and walked from Passy to the Barriere de 1'Etoile. They
had been on their feet, it will be remembered, since five in the
morning, but bah 1 there is no weariness on Sunday, said
Favourite; on Sunday fatigue has a holiday. Towards three
o'clock, the four couples, wild with happiness, were running down
to the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied
the heights of Beaujon, and the serpentine line of which might
have been perceived above the trees of the Champs Elysdes.

From time to time Favourite exclaimed:

" But the surprise? I want the surprise."

" Be patient," answered Tholomyes,

V
AT BOMBARDA'S

THE Russian mountains exhausted, they thought of dinner, and
the happy eight, a little weary at last, stranded on Bombarda's,
a branch establishment, set up in the Champs Elysees by the
celebrated restaurateur, Bombarda, whose sign was then seen
on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Delorme arcade.

A large but plain apartment, with an alcove containing a bed
at the bottom (the place was so full on Sunday that it was neces-
sary to take up with this lodging-room); two windows from
which they could see, through the elms, the quai and the river;
a magnificent August sunbeam glancing over the windows; two
tables; one loaded with a triumphant mountain of bouquets,
interspersed with hats and bonnets, while at the other, the four
couples were gathered round a joyous pile of plates, napkins,
glasses, and bottles; jugs of beer and flasks of wine; little
order on the table, and some disorder under it.

Says Moliere:

Ils faisaient sous la table,
Un bruit, un trique-trac epouvaritable.1

1 And under the table they beat
A fearful tattoo with their feet.

126 Les Miserables

Here was where the pastoral, commenced at five o'clock in the
morning, was to be found at half-past four in the afternoon.
The sun was declining, and their appetite with it.

The Champs Elysees, full of sunshine and people, was nothing
but glare and dust, the two elements of glory. The horses of
Marly, those neighing marbles, were curveting in a golden cloud.
Carriages were coming and going. A magnificent squadron of
body-guards, with the trumpet at their head, were coming down
the avenue of Neuilly; the white flag, faintly tinged with red
by the setting sun, was floating over the dome of the Tuileries.
The Place de la Concorde, then become Place Louis XV. again,
was overflowing with pleased promenaders. Many wore the
silver fleur-de-lis suspended from the watered white ribbon
which, in 1817, had not wholly disappeared from the button-
holes. Here and there in the midst of groups of applauding
spectators, circles of little girls gave to the winds a Bourbon
doggerel rhyme, intended to overwhelm the Hundred Days,
and the chorus of which ran :

Rendez-nous notre pere de Gand,
Rendez-nous notre pere.1

Crowds of the inhabitants of the faubourgs in their Sunday
clothes, sometimes even decked with fleurs-de-lis like the
citizens, were scattered over the great square and the square
Marigny, playing games and going around on wooden horses;
others were drinking; a few, printer apprentices, had on paper
caps; their laughter resounded through the air. Everything
was radiant. It was a time of undoubted peace and profound
royal security ; it was the time when a private and special report
of Prefect of Police Angles to the king on the faubourgs of Paris,
ended with these lines : " Everything considered, sire, there is
nothing to fear from these people. They are as careless and
indolent as cats. The lower people of the provinces are restless,
those of Paris are not so. They are all small men, sire, and it
would take two of them, one upon the other, to make one of
your grenadiers. There is nothing at all to fear on the side of
the populace of the capital. It is remarkable that this part of
the population has also decreased in stature during the last fifty
years; and the people of the faubourgs of Paris are smaller than
before the Revolution. They are not dangerous. In short,
they are good canaille."

1 Give us back our Pirt de Gand.
Give us back our sire.

Fantine 127

That a cat may become changed into a lion, prefects of police
do not believe possible ; nevertheless, it may be, and this is the
miracle of the people of Paris. Besides, the cat, so despised
by the Count Angles, had the esteem of the republics of anti-
quity; it was the incarnation of liberty in their sight, and, as if
to serve as a pendant to the wingless Minerva of the Piraeus, there
was, in the public square at Corinth, the bronze colossus of a
cat. The simple police of the Restoration looked too hopefully
on the people of Paris. They are by no means such good
canaille as is believed. The Parisian is among Frenchmen
what the Athenian was among Greeks. Nobody sleeps better
than he, nobody is more frankly frivolous and idle than he,
nobody seems to forget things more easily than he; but do not
trust him, notwithstanding; he is apt at all sorts of nonchalance,
but when there is glory to be gained, he is wonderful in every
species of fury. Give him a pike, and he will play the tenth of
August; give him a musket, and you shall have an Austerlitz.
He is the support of Napoleon, and the resource of Danton.
Is France in question? he enlists; is liberty in question? he
tears up the pavement. Beware! his hair rising with rage is
epic; his blouse drapes itself into a chlamys about him. Take
care! At the first corner, Grene"tat will make a Caudine Forks.
When the tocsin sounds, this dweller in the faubourgs- will grow ;
this little man will arise, his look will be terrible, his breath will
become a tempest, and a blast will go forth from his poor, frail
breast that might shake the wrinkles out of the Alps. Thanks
to the men of the Paris foubourgs, the Revolution infused into
armies, conquers Europe. He sings, it is his joy. Proportion
his song to his nature, and you shall see ! So long as he had the
Carmagnole merely for his chorus, he overthrew only Louis
XVI.; let him sing the Marseillaise, and he will deliver the
world.

Writing this note in the margin of the Angles report, we will
return to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was
over.

A CHAPTER OF SELF- ADMIRATION

TABLE talk and lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; lovers'
talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.

Fameuil and Dahlia hummed airs; Tholomyes drank,
Z£phine laughed, Fantine smiled. Listolier blew a wooden

128 Les Miserables

trumpet that he had bought at Saint Cloud. Favourite looked
tenderly at Blacheville, and said:
" Blacheville, I adore you."
This brought forth a question from Blacheville :
" What would you do, Favourite, if I should leave you? "
"Me!" cried Favourite. "Oh! do not say that, even in
sport ! If you should leave me, I would run after you, I would
scratch you, I would pull your hair, I would throw water on you,
I would have you arrested."

Blacheville smiled with the effeminate foppery of a man whose
self-love is tickled. Favourite continued :

" Yes ! I would cry watch 1 No 1 I would scream, for
example: rascal! "

Blacheville, in ecstasy, leaned back in his chair, and closed
both eyes with a satisfied air.

Dahlia, still eating, whispered to Favourite in the hubbub:
" Are you really so fond of your Blacheville, then? "
" I detest him," answered Favourite, in the same tone, taking
up her fork. " He is stingy; I am in love with the little fellow
over the way from where I live. He is a nice young man; do
you know him? Anybody can see that he was born to be an
actor ! I love actors. As soon as he comes into the house, his
mother cries out: 'Oh, dear! my peace is all gone. There,
he is going to hallo ! You will split my head; ' just because he
goes into the garret among the rats, into the dark corners, as
high as he can go, and sings and declaims — and how do I know
that they can hear him below! He gets twenty sous a day
already by writing for a pettifogger. He is the son of an old
chorister of Saint- Jacques du Haut-Pas! Oh, he is a nice
young man ! He is so fond of me that he said one day, when he
saw me making dough for pancakes : ' Mamselle, make your
gloves into fritters and I will eat them.' Nobody but artists
can say things like these; I am on the high road to go crazy
about this little fellow. It is all the same, I tell Blacheville
that I adore him. How I lie ! Oh, how I lie 1 "
Favourite paused, then continued :

" Dahlia, you see I am melancholy. It has done nothing but
rain all summer; the wind makes me nervous and freckles me.
Blacheville is very mean; there are hardly any green peas in the
market yet, people care for nothing but eating; I have the
spleen, as the English say; butter is so dearl and then, just
think of it — it is horrible ! We are dining in a room with a bed
in itt I am disgusted with life."

Fantine 129

VII

THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYES

MEANTIME, while some were singing, the rest were all noisily
talking at the same time. There was a perfect uproar.
Tholomyes interfered.

" Do not talk at random, nor too fast! " exclaimed he; " we
must take time for reflection, if we would be brilliant. Too
much improvisation leaves the mind stupidly void. Running
beer gathers no foam. Gentlemen, no haste. Mingle dignity
with festivity, eat with deliberation, feast slowly. Take your
time. See the spring; if it hastens forward, it is ruined; that
is, frozen. Excess of zeal kills peach and apricot trees. Excess'
of zeal kills the grace and joy of good dinners. No zeal, gentle-
men! Grimod de la Reyniere is of Talleyrand's opinion."

" Tholomyes, let us alone," said Blacheville.

" Down with the tyrant! " cried Fameuil.

" Bombarda, Bombance, and Bamboche ! " exclaimed
Listolier.

" Sunday still exists," resumed Listolier.

" We are sober," added Fameuil.

" Tholomyes," said Blacheville, " behold my calmness (man
calme.}"

" You are its marquis," replied Tholomyes.

This indifferent play on words had the effect of a stons
thrown into a pool. The Marquis de Montcalm was a cele-
brated royalist of the time. All the frogs were silent.

" My friends! " exclaimed Tholomyes, in the tone of a man
resuming his sway. " Collect yourselves. This pun, though
it falls from heaven, should not be welcomed with too much
wonder. Everything that falls in this wise is not necessarily
worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun is the dropping
of the soaring spirit. The jest falls, it matters not where. And
the spirit, after freeing itself from the folly, plunges into the
clouds. A white spot settling upon a rock does not prevent
the condor from hovering above. Far be it from me to insult
the pun! I honour it in proportion to its merits — no more.
The most august, most sublime, and most charming in humanity
and perhaps out of humanity, have made plays on words.
Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on Isaac, ^Eschylus
on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And mark, that this
pun of Cleopatra preceded the battle of Actium, and that, with-

I E

130 Les Miserables

out it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a
Greek name signifying dipper. This conceded, I return to my
exhortation. My brethren, I repeat, no zeal, no noise, no excess,
even in witticisms, mirth, gaiety and plays on words. Listen
to me; have the prudence of Amphiaraus, and the boldness of
Csesar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses; Est modus in
rebus. There must be a limit even to dinners. You like apple-
puffs, ladies; do not abuse them. There must be, even in puffs,
good sense and art. Gluttony punishes the glutton. Gula
punishes Gulax. Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing
morality on the stomach. And remember this: each of our
passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded.
We must in everything write the word finis in time; we must
restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent; we must draw the
bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break
the strings with our own hand.

" The wise man is he who knows when and how to stop. Have
some confidence in me. Because I have studied law a little, as
my examinations prove, because I know the difference between
the question mue and the question pendante, because I have
written a Latin thesis on the method of torture in Rome at
the time when Munatius Demens was quaestor of the Parricide;
because I am about to become doctor, as it seems, it does not
follow necessarily that I am a fool. I recommend to you
moderation in all your desires. As sure as my name is Felix
Tholomyes, I speak wisely. Happy is he, v/ho, when the hour
comes, takes a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or
Origenes."

Favourite listened with profound attention. " Felix! " said
she, " what a pretty word. I like this name. It is Latin. It
means prosperous."

Tholomyes continued:

" Quiriies, gentlemen, cabaileros, mes amis, would you feel no
passion, dispense with the nuptial couch and set love at defiance ?
Nothing is easier. Here is the recipe : lemonade, over exercise,
hard labour; tire yourselves out, draw logs, do not sleep, keep
watch; gorge yourselves with nitrous drinks and ptisans of
water-lilies; drink emulsions of poppies and agnuscastus;
enliven this with a rigid diet, starve yourselves, and add cold
baths, girdles of herbs, the application of a leaden plate, lotions
of solutions of lead and fomentations with vinegar and water."

" I prefer a woman," said Listolier.

"Woman!" resumed Tholomyes, "distrust the sex. Un-

Fantine 131

happy is he who surrenders himself to the changing heart of
woman! Woman is perfidious and tortuous. She detests the
serpent through rivalry of trade. The serpent is the shop
across the way."

" Tholomyes," cried Blacheville, " you are drunk,"

" The deuce I am ! " said Tholomyes.

" Then be gay," resumed Blacheville.

" I agree/' replied Tholomyes.

Then, filling his glass, he arose.

" Honour to wine ! Nunc te, Bacche, canam. Pardon, ladies,
that is Spanish. And here is the proof, senoras ; like wine-
measure, like people. The arroba of Castile contains sixteen
litres, the cantaro of Alicante twelve, the almuda of the Canaries
twenty-five, the cuartin of the Baleares twenty-six, and the
boot of Czar Peter thirty. Long live the czar, who was great,
and long live his boot, which was still greater ! Ladies, a friendly
counsel ! deceive your neighbours, if it seems good to you. The
characteristic of love is to rove. Love was not made to cower
and crouch like an English housemaid whose knees are callused
with scrubbing. Gentle love was made but to rove gaily! It
has been said to err is human; I say, to err is loving. Ladies, I
idolise you all. 0 Zephine, or Josephine, with face more than
wrinkled, you would be charming if you were not cross. Yours
is like a beautiful face, upon which some one has sat down by
mistake. As to Favourite, oh, nymphs and muses, one day,
as Blacheville was crossing the Rue Guerin-Boisseau, he saw
a beautiful girl with white, well-gartered stockings, who was
showing them. The prologue pleased him, and Blacheville
loved. She whom he loved was Favourite. Oh, Favourite!
Thou hast Ionian lips. There was a Greek painter, Euphorion,
who was surnamed painter of lips. This Greek alone would
have been worthy to paint thy mouth. Listen! before thee,
there was no creature worthy the name. Thou wert made to
receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve. Beauty
begins with thee. I have spoken of Eve; she was of thy
creation. Thou deservest the patent for the invention of beauti-
ful women. Oh, Favourite, I cease to thou you, for I pass from
poetry to prose. You spoke just now of my name. It moved
me; but, whatever we do, let us not trust to names, they may
be deceitful. I am called Felix, I am not happy. Words are
deceivers. Do not blindly accept the indications which they
give. It would be a mistake to write to Liege for corks or to
Pau for gloves. Miss Dahlia, in your place, I should call myself

132 Les Miserables

Rose. The flower should have fragrance, and woman should
have wit. I say nothing of Fantine, she is visionary, dreamy,
pensive, sensitive; she is a phantom with the form of a nymph,
and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a
grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings, and
prays, and gazes at the sky without knowing clearly what she
sees nor what she does, and who, with eyes fixed on heaven,
wanders in a garden among more birds than exist there. Oh,
Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyes, am an illusion — but she
does not even hear me — the fair daughter of chimeras ! Never-
theless, everything on her is freshness, gentleness, youth, soft,
matinal clearness. Oh, Fantine, worthy to be called Marguerite
or Pearl, you are a jewel of the purest water. Ladies, a second
counsel, do not marry; marriage is a graft; it may take well
or ill. Shun the risk. But what do I say? I am wasting my
words. Women are incurable on the subject of weddings, and
all that we wise men can say will not hinder vestmakers and
gaiter-binders from dreaming about husbands loaded with
diamonds. Well, be it so; but, beauties, remember this: you
eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, oh, women 1 it
is that of nibbling sugar. Oh, consuming sex, the pretty,
little white teeth adore sugar. Now, listen attentively I Sugar
is a salt. Every salt is desiccating. Sugar is the most desiccating
of all salts. It sucks up the liquids from the blood through the
veins; thence comes the coagulation, then the solidification of
the blood; thence tubercles in the lungs; thence death. And
this is why diabetes borders on consumption. Crunch no sugar,
therefore, and you shall live ! I turn towards the men : gentle-
men, make conquests. Rob each other without remorse of
your beloved. Chassez and cross over. There are no friends
in love. Wherever there is a pretty woman, hostility is open.
No quarter; war to the knife ! A pretty woman is a casus belli ;
a pretty woman is a ftagrans delictum. All the invasions of
history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is the
right of man. Romulus carried off the Sabine women ; William
carried off the Saxon women; Caesar carried off the Roman
women. The man who is not loved hovers like a vulture over
the sweetheart of others; and for my part, to all unfortunate
widowers, I issue the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to
the army of Italy, " Soldiers, you lack for everything. The
enemy has everything."

Tholomyes checked himself.

" Take breath, Tholomyes," said Blacheville,

Fantine 133

At the same time, Blacheville, aided by Listolier and Fameuil,
with an air of lamentation hummed one of those workshop songs,
made up of the first words that came, rhyming richly and not
at all, void of sense as the movement of the trees and the sound
of the winds, and which are borne from the smoke of the pipes,
and dissipate and take flight with it. This is the couplet by
which the group replied to the harangue of Tholomyes :

Les peres dindons donnerent
De 1'argent a un agent
Pour que mons Clermont-Tonnerre
Fiat fait pape 4 la Saint- Jean;
Mais Clermont ne put pas etre
Fait pape, n'etant pas pretre;
Alors leur agent rageant
Leur rapporta leur argent.

This was not likely to calm the inspiration of Tholomyes; he
emptied his glass, filled it, and again began :

" Down with wisdom! forget all that I have said. Let us
be neither prudes, nor prudent, nor prud'hommes ! I drink to
jollity; let us be jolly. Let us finish our course of study by
folly and prating. Indigestion and the Digest. Let Justinian
be the male, and festivity the female. There is joy in the
abysses. Behold, oh, creation ! The world is a huge diamond !
I am happy. The birds are marvellous. What a festival
everywhere ! The nightingale is an Elleviou gratis. Summer,
I salute thee. Oh, Luxembourg! Oh, Georgics of the Rue
Madame, and the Alice de 1'Observatoire ! Oh, entranced
dreamers! The pampas of America would delight me, if I
had not the arcades of the Odeon. My soul goes out towards
virgin forests and savannahs. Everything is beautiful; the
flies hum in the sunbeams. The humming-birds whizz in the
sunshine. Kiss me, Fantine ! "

And, by mistake, he kissed Favourite.

VIII

DEATH OF A HORSE

" THE dinners are better at Edon's than at Bombarda's,"
exclaimed Zdphine.

" I like Bombarda better than Edon," said Blacheville.
" There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. See the lower
hall. There are mirrors (glaces) on the walls."

" I prefer ices (glaces) on my plate," said Favourite.

Blacheville persisted.

134 Les Miserables

" Look at the knives. The handles are silver at Bcmbarda's,
and bone at Edon's. Now, silver is more precious than bone.':

" Except when it is on the chin/' observed Tholomyes.

He looked out at this moment at the dome of the Invalides,
which was visible from Bombarda's windows.

There was a pause.

" Tholomyes," cried Fameuil, " Listolier and I have just had
a discussion."

" A discussion is good/' replied Tholomyes, " a quarrel is
better."

" We were discussing philosophy."

" I have no objection."

" Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza? "

" Desaugiers," said Tholomyes.

This decision rendered, he drank, and resumed:

" I consent to live. All is not over on earth, since we can yet
reason falsely. I render thanks for this to the immortal gods.
We lie, but we laugh. We affirm, but we doubt. The unex-
pected shoots forth from a syllogism. It is fine. There are
men still on earth who know how to open and shut pleasantly
the surprise boxes of paradox. Know, ladies, that this wine
you are drinking so calmly, is Madeira from the vineyard of
Coural das Frerras, which is three hundred and seventeen
fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink !
three hundred and seventeen fathoms ! and M. Bombarda, this
magnificent restaurateur, gives you these three hundred and
seventeen fathoms for four francs, fifty centimes."

Fameuil interrupted again.

" Tholomyes, your opinions are law. Who is your favourite
author?"

" Ber "

" Quin? "

"No. Choux."

And Tholomyes continued.

"Honour to Bombarda! he would equal Munophis of
Elephanta if he could procure me an almee and Thygelion of
Chaeronea if he could bring me a hetaira ! for, oh, ladies, there
were Bombardas in Greece and Egypt; this Apuleius teaches
us. Alas! always the same thing and nothing new. Nothing
more unpublished in the creation of the Creator 1 Nil sub sola
novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and
Carabine mounts with Carabin in the galliot at Saint Cloud,
as Aspasia embarked with Pericles on the fleet of Samos. A

Fantine 135

last word. Do you know who this Aspasia was, ladies?
Although she lived in a time when women had not yet a soul,
she was a soul ; a soul of a rose and purple shade, more glowing
than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a being who
touched the two extremes of woman, the prostitute goddess*
She was Socrates, plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created
in case Prometheus might need a wanton."

Tholomyes, now that he was started would have been stopped
with difficulty, had not a horse fallen down at this moment on
the quai. The shock stopped short both the cart and the orator.
It was an old, meagre mare, worthy of the knacker, harnessed
to a very heavy cart. On reaching Bombarda's, the beast,
worn and exhausted, had refused to go further. This incident
attracted a crowd. Scarcely had the carman, swearing and
indignant, had time to utter with fitting energy the decisive
word, " matin I " backed by a terrible stroke of the whip,
when the hack fell, to rise no more. At the hubbub of the
passers-by, the merry auditors of Tholomyes turned their heads,
and Tholomyes profited by it to close his address by this
melancholy strophe:

Elle 6tait de ce monde oil coucous et carrosses

Ont le meme destin;
Et, rosse, elle a vdgu ce que vivent les rosses,

L'espace d'un matin!

" Poor horse ! " sighed Fantine.

Dahlia exclaimed:

" Here is Fantine pitying horses 1 Was there ever anything
so absurd? "

At this moment, Favourite, crossing her arms and turning
round her head, looked fixedly at Tholomeys and said :

"Come! the surprise ?"

" Precisely. The moment has come," replied Tholomyes.
" Gentlemen, the hour has come for surprising these ladies.
Ladies, wait for us a moment."

" It begins with a kiss," said Blacheville.

" On the forehead," added Tholomyes.

Each one gravely placed a kiss on the forehead of his mistress j
after which they directed their steps towards the door, all four
in file, laying their fingers on their lips.

Favourite clapped her hands as they went out.

" It is amusing already," said she.

" Do not be too long," murmured Fantine. " We are waiting
for you."

i 36 Les Miserables

JOYOUS END OF JOY

THE girls, left alone, leaned their elbows on the window sills
in couples, and chattered together, bending their heads and
speaking from one window to the other.

They saw the young men go out of Bombarda's, arm in
arm ; they turned round, made signals to them laughingly, then
disappeared in the dusty Sunday crowd which takes possession
of the Champs-Elysees once a week.

" Do not be long ! " cried Fantine.

" What are they going to bring us? " said Zephine.

" Surely something pretty," said Dahlia.

" I hope it will be gold," resumed Favourite.

They were soon distracted by the stir on the water's edge,
which they distinguished through the branches of the tall trees,
and which diverted them greatly. It was the hour for the
departure of the mails and diligences. Almost all the stage-
coaches to the south and west, passed at that time by the
Champs-Elyse'es. The greater part followed the quai and went
out through the Barriere Passy. Every minute some huge
vehicle, painted yellow and black, heavily loaded, noisily
harnessed, distorted with mails, awnings, and valises, full of
heads that were constantly disappearing, grinding the curb-
stones, turning the pavements into flints, rushed through the
crowd, throwing out sparks like a forge, with dust for smoke,
and an air of fury. This hubbub delighted the young girls.
Favourite exclaimed:

" What an uproar; one would say that heaps of chains were
taking flight."

It so happened that one of these vehicles which could be
distinguished with difficulty through the obscurity of the elms,
stopped for a moment, then set out again on a gallop. This
surprised Fantine.

" It is strange," said she. " I thought the diligences never
stopped."

Favourite shrugged her shoulders:

" This Fantine is surprising; I look at her with curiosity.
She wonders at the most simple things. Suppose that I am
a traveller, and say to the diligence; ' I am going on; you can
take me up on the quai in passing.' The diligence passes, sees

Fantine 137

me, stops and takes me up. This happens every day. You
know nothing of life, my dear."

Some time passed in this manner. Suddenly Favourite started
as if from sleep.

" Well! " said she, " and the surprise? "

" Yes," returned Dahlia, " the famous surprise."

" They are very long! " said Fantine.

As Fantine finished the sigh, the boy who had waited at dinner
entered. He had in his hand something that looked like a
letter.

" What is that? " asked Favourite.

" It is a paper that the gentlemen left for these ladies," he
replied.

" Why did you not bring it at once? "

" Because the gentlemen ordered me not to give it to the
ladies before an hour," returned the boy.

Favourite snatched the paper from his hands. It was really
a letter.

" Stop! " said she. " There is no address; but see what is
written on it:

" THIS IS THE SURPRISE."

She hastily unsealed the letter, opened it, and read (she knew
how to read):

" Oh, our lovers!

" Know that we have parents. Parents — you scarcely know
the meaning of the word, they are what are called fathers and
mothers in the civil code, simple but honest. Now these
parents bemoan us, these old men claim us, these good men and
women call us prodigal sons, desire our return and offer to kill
for us the fatted calf. We obey them, being virtuous. At
the moment when you read this, five mettlesome horses will be
bearing us back to our papas and mammas. We are pitching
our camps, as Bossuet says. We are going, we are gone. We
fly in the arms of Laffitte, and on the wings of Caillard. The
Toulouse diligence snatches us from the abyss, and you are this
abyss, our beautiful darlings ! We are returning to society,
to duty and order, on a full trot, at the rate of three leagues an
hour. It is necessary to the country that we become, like
everybody else, prefects, fathers of families, rural guards, and
councillors of state. Venerate us. We sacrifice ourselves.
Mourn for us rapidly, and replace us speedily. If this letter
rends you, rend it in turn. Adieu.

138 Les Miserables

" For nearly two years we have made you happy. Bear us
no ill will for it."

" Signed : BLACHEVILLE,
FAMEUIL,
LISTOLIER,
FELIX THOLOMYES.
" P.S. The dinner is paid for."

The four girls gazed at each other.

Favourite was the first to break silence.

" Well! " said she, " it is a good farce all the same."

" It is very droll," said Zephine.

" It must have been Blacheville that had the idea," resumed
Favourite. " This makes me in love with him. Soon loved,
soon gone. That is the story."

" No," said Dahlia, " it is an idea of Tholomyes. This is
clear."

" In that case," returned Favourite, " down with Blacheville,
and long live Tholomyes ! "

" Long live Tholomyes ! " cried Dahlia and Zephine.

And they burst into laughter.

Fantine laughed like the rest.

An hour afterwards, when she had re-entered her chamber,
she wept. It was her first love, as we have said ; she had given
herself to this Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl
had a child.

BOOK FOURTH
TO ENTRUST IS SOMETIMES TO ABANDON

ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER

THERE was, during the first quarter of the present century,
at Montfermiel, near Paris, a sort of chop-house: it is not there
now. It was kept by a man and his wife, named Thenardier,
and was situated in the Lane Boulanger. Above the door, nailed
flat against the wall, was a board, upon which something was
painted that looked like a man carrying on his back another man
wearing the heavy epaulettes of a general, gilt and with large
silver stars; red blotches typified blood; the remainder of the
picture was smoke, and probably represented a battle. Beneath
was this inscription: To THE SERGEANT OF WATERLOO.

Nothing is commoner than a cart or wagon before the door of
an inn; nevertheless the vehicle, or more properly speaking, the
fragment of a vehicle which obstructed the street in front of
the Sergeant of Waterloo one evening in the spring of 1815,
certainly would have attracted by its bulk the attention of any
painter who might have been passing.

It was the fore-carriage of one of those drays for carrying
heavy articles, used in wooded countries for transporting joists
and trunks of trees: it consisted of a massive iron axle-tree
with a pivot to which a heavy pole was attached, and which
was supported by two enormous wheels. As a whole, it was
squat, crushing, and misshapen: it might have been fancied a
gigantic gun-carriage.

The roads had covered the wheels, felloes, limbs, axle, and
the pole with a coating of hideous yellow-hued mud, similar
in tint to that with which cathedrals are sometimes decorated.
The wood had disappeared beneath mud ; and the iron beneath
rust.

Under the axle-tree hung festooned a huge chain fit for a
Goliath of the galleys.

This chain recalled, not the beams which it was used to
139

140 Les Miserables

carn% but the mastodons and mammoths which it might have
harnessed; it reminded one of the galleys, but of cyclopean
and superhuman galleys, and seemed as if unriveted from some
monster. With it Homer could have bound Polyphemus, or
Shakspeare Caliban.

Why was this vehicle in this place in the street, one may ask ?
First to obstruct the lane, and then to complete its work of rust.
There is in the old social order a host of institutions which we
find like this across our path in the full light of day, and which
present no other reasons for being there.

The middle of the chain was hanging quite near the ground,
under the axle; and upon the bend, as on a swinging rope, two
little girls were seated that evening in exquisite grouping, the
smaller, eighteen months old, in the lap of the larger, who was
two years and a half old.

A handkerchief carefully knotted kept them from falling. A
mother, looking upon this frightful chain, had said: "Ah!
there is a plaything for my children! "

The radiant children, picturesquely and tastefully decked,
might be fancied two roses twining the rusty iron, with their
triumphantly sparkling eyes, and their blooming, laughing faces.
One was a rosy blonde, the other a brunette; their artless
faces were two ravishing surprises; the perfume that was shed
upon the air by a flowering shrub near by seemed their own
out-breathings; the smaller one was showing her pretty little
bod}7 with the chaste indecency of babyhood. Above and around
these delicate heads, moulded in happiness and bathed in light,
the gigantic carriage, black with rust and almost frightful with
its entangled curves and abrupt angles, arched like the mouth of
a cavern.

The mother, a woman whose appearance was rather forbidding,
but touching at this moment, was seated on the sill of the inn,
swinging the two children by a long string, while she brooded
them with her eyes for fear of accident with that animal but
heavenly expression peculiar to maternity. At each vibration
the hideous links uttered a creaking noise like an angry cry;
the little ones were in ecstasies, the setting sun mingled
in the joy, and nothing could be more charming than this
caprice of chance which made of a Titan's chain a swing for
cherubim.

While rocking the babes the mother sang with a voice out of
tune a then popular song:

" II le faut, disait un guerrier."

Fantine 141

Her song and watching her children prevented her hearing and
seeing what was passing in the street.

Some one, however, had approached her as she was beginning
the first couplet of the song, and suddenly she heard a voice
say quite near her ear:

" You have two pretty children there, madame."

" A la belle et tendre Imogine,"

answered the mother, continuing her song; then she turned her
head.

A woman was before her at a little distance; she also had a
child, which she bore in her arms.

She was carrying in addition a large carpet-bag, which seemed
heavy.

This woman's child was one of the divinest beings that can
be imagined : a little girl of two or three years. She might have
entered the lists with the other little ones for coquetry of attire ;
she wore a head-dress of fine linen; ribbons at her shoulders
and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of her skirt were
raised enough to show her plump fine white leg : she was charm-
ingly rosy and healthful. The pretty little creature gave one a
desire to bite her cherry cheeks. We can say nothing of her
eyes except that they must have been very large, and were
fringed with superb lashes. She was asleep.

She was sleeping in the absolutely confiding slumber peculiar
to her age. Mothers' arms are made of tenderness, and sweet
sleep blesses the child who lies therein.

As to the mother, she seemed poor and sad; she had the
appearance of a working woman who is seeking to return to the
life of a peasant. She was young, — and pretty ? It was possible,
but in that garb beauty could not be displayed. Her hair, one
blonde mesh of which had fallen, seemed very thick, but it
was severely fastened up beneath an ugly, close, narrow nun's
head-dress, tied under the chin. Laughing shows fine teeth
when one has them, but she did not laugh. Her eyes seemed
not to have been tearless for a long time. She was pale, and
looked very weary, and somewhat sick. She gazed upon her
child, sleeping in her arms, with that peculiar look which only
a mother possesses who nurses her own child. Her form was
clumsily masked by a large blue handkerchief folded across her
bosom. Her hands were tanned and spotted with freckles,
the forefinger hardened and pricked with the needle; she wore
a coarse brown delaine mantle, a calico dress, and large heavy
shoes. It was Fantine.

142 Les Miserables

Yes, Fantine. Hard to recognise, yet, on looking attentively,
you saw that she still retained her beauty. A sad line, such as
is formed by irony, had marked her right cheek. As to her
toilette — that airy toilette of muslin and ribbons which seemed
as if made of gaiety, folly, and music, full of baubles and per-
fumed with lilacs — that had vanished like the beautiful sparkling
hoarfrost, which we take for diamonds in the sun; they melt,
and leave the branch dreary and black.

Ten months had slipped away since " the good farce."

What had passed during these ten months. We can guess.

After recklessness, trouble. Fantine had lost sight of
Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia; the tie, broken on the part of
the men, was unloosed on the part of the women; they would
have been astonished if any one had said a fortnight afterwards
they were friends; they had no longer cause to be so. Fantine
was left alone. The father of her child gone — Alas! such
partings are irrevocable — she found herself absolutely isolated,
with the habit of labour lost, and the taste for pleasure acquired.
Led by her liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the small business
that she knew how to do, she had neglected her opportunities,
they were all gone. No resource. Fantine could scarcely read,
and did not know how to write. She had only been taught in
childhood how to sign her name. She had a letter written by
a public letter- writer to Tholomye's, then a second, then a third.
Tholomyes had replied to none of them. One day, Fantine
heard some old women saying as they saw her child: "Do
people ever take such children to heart? They only shrug
their shoulders at such children ! " Then she thought of Tholo-
myes, who shrugged his shoulders at his child, and who did not
take this innocent child to heart, and her heart became dark
in the place that was his. What should she do ? She had no one
to ask. She had committed a fault; but, in the depths of her
nature, we know dwelt modesty and virtue. She had a vague
feeling that she was on the eve of falling into distress, of slipping
into the street. She must have courage ; she had it, and bore up
bravely. The idea occurred to her of returning to her native

village M sur M , there perhaps some one would know

her, and give her work. Yes, but she must hide her fault. And
she had a confused glimpse of the possible necessity of a separa-
tion still more painful than the first. Her heart ached, but she
took her resolution. It will be seen that Fantine possessed the
stern courage of life. She had already valiantly renounced her
finery, was draped in calico, and had put all her silks, her gew-

Fantine 143

gaws, her ribbons, and laces on her daughter — the only vanity
that remained, and that a holy one. She sold all she had, which
gave her two hundred francs ; when her little debts were paid,
she had but about eighty left. At twenty-two years of age, on
a fine spring morning, she left Paris, carrying her child on her
back. He who had seen the two passing, must have pitied them.
The woman had nothing in the world but this child, and this
child had nothing in the world but this woman. Fantine had
nursed her child ; that had weakened her chest somewhat, and
she coughed slightly.

We shall have no further need to speak of M. Felix Tholomyes.
We will only say here, that twenty years later, under King Louis
Philippe, he was a fat provincial attorney, rich and influential,
a wise elector and rigid juryman; always, however, a man of
pleasure.

Towards noon, after having, for the sake of rest, travelled
from time to time at a cost of three or four cents a league, in
what they called then the Petites Voitures of the environs of Paris,
Fantine reached Montefermeil, and stood in Boulanger Lane.

As she was passing by the Thenardier chop-house, the two
little children sitting in delight on their monstrous swing, had
a sort of dazzling effect upon her, and she paused before this
joyous vision.

There are charms. These two little girls were one for this
mother.

She beheld them with emotion. The presence of angels is
a herald of paradise. She thought she saw above this inn the
mysterious " HERE " of Providence. These children were
evidently happy: she gazed upon them, she admired them,
so much affected that at the moment when the mother was taking
breath between the verses of her song, she could not help saying
what we have been reading.

" You have two pretty children there, madame."

The most ferocious animals are disarmed by caresses to their
young.

The mother raised her head and thanked her, and made the
stranger sit down on the stone step, she herself being on the door-
sill: the two women began to talk together.

" My name is Madame Thenardier," said the mother of the
two girls: " we keep this inn."

Then going on with her song, she sang between her teeth :

" II le faut, je suis chevalier,
Et je pars pour la Palestine."

144 Les Miserables

This Madame Thenardier was a red-haired, brawny, angular
woman, of the soldier's wife type in all its horror, and, singularly
enough, she had a lolling air which she had gained from novel-
reading. She was a masculine lackadaisicalness. Old romances
impressed on the imaginations of mistresses of chop-houses
hare such effects. She was still young, scarcely thirty years
old. If this woman, who was seated stooping, had been upright,
perhaps her towering form and her broad shoulders, those of
a movable colossus, fit for a market-woman, would have dis-
mayed the traveller, disturbed her confidence, and prevented
what we have to relate. A person seated instead of standing;
fat« hangs on such a thread as that.

The traveller told her story, a little modified.

She said she was a working woman, and her husband was
dead. Not being able to procure work in Paris she was going
in search of it elsewhere; in her own province; that she had
left Paris that morning on foot; that carrying her child she had
become tired, and meeting the Villemomble stage had got in;
that from Villemomble she had come on foot to Montfermeil;
that the child had walked a little, but not much, she was so
young; that she was compelled to carry her, and the jewel had
fallen asleep.

And at these words she gave her daughter a passionate kiss,
which wakened her. The child opened its large blue eyes, like
its mother's, and saw — what? Nothing, everything, with that
serious and sometimes severe air of little children, which is one
of the mysteries of their shining innocence before our shadowy
virtues. One would say that they felt themselves to be angels,
and knew us to be human. Then the child began to laugh,
and, although the mother restrained her, slipped to the ground,
with the indomitable energy of a little one that wants to run
about. All at once she perceived the two others in their
swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue in token of
admiration.

Mother Thenardier untied the children and took them from
the swing, saying:

" Play together, all three of you."

At that age acquaintance is easy, and in a moment the little
Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer, making holes
in the ground to their intense delight.

This new-comer was very sprightly: the goodness of the
mother is written in the gaiety of the child; she had taken a
splinter of wood, which she used as a spade, and was stoutly

Fantine 145

digging a hole fit for a fly. The gravedigger's work is charming
when done by a child.

The two women continued to chat.

" What do your call your brat? "

" Cosette."

For Cosette read Euphrasie. The name of the little one was
Euphrasie. But the mother had made Cosette out of it, by
that sweet and charming instinct of mothers and of the people,
who change Josef a into Pepita, and Francoise into Sillette.
That is a kind of derivation which deranges and disconcerts
all the science of etymologists. We knew a grandmother who
succeeded in making from Theodore, Gnon.

"How old is she?"

" She is going on three years."

" The age of my oldest."

The three girls were grouped in an attitude of deep anxiety
and bliss; a great event had occurred; a large worm had come
out of the ground; they were afraid of it, and yet in ecstasies
over it.

Their bright foreheads touched each other: three heads in one
halo of glory.

" Children," exclaimed the Thenardier mother; " how soon
they know one another. See them ! One would swear they were
three sisters."

These words were the spark which the other mother was
probably awaiting. She seized the hand of Madame Thenardier
and said:

" Will you keep my child for me? "

Madame Thenardier made a motion of surprise, which was
neither consent nor refusal.

Cosette's mother continued :

" You see I cannot take my child into the country. Work
forbids it. With a child I could not find a place there ; they are
so absurd in that district. It is God who has led me before your
inn. The sight of your little ones, so pretty, and clean, and
happy, has overwhelmed me. I said: there is a good mother;
they will be like three sisters, and then it will not be long before
I come back. Will you keep my child for me ? "

" I must think over it," said Thenardier.

" I will give six francs a month."

Here a man's voice was heard from within :

" Not less than seven francs, and six months paid in advance."

" Six times seven are forty-two," said Thenardier<

i 46 Les Miserables

" I will give it/' said the mother.

" And fifteen francs extra for the first expenses," added the
man.

" That's fifty-seven francs/' said Madame Thenardier, and in
the midst of her reckoning she sang indistinctly :

"II le faut, disait un guerrier."

" I will give it," said the mother; " I have eighty francs.
That will leave me enough to go into the country if I walk. I
will earn some money there, and as soon as I have I will come
for my little love."

The man's voice returned :

" Has the child a wardrobe ? "

" That is my husband," said Thenardier.

" Certainly she has, the poor darling. I knew it was your
husband. And a fine wardrobe it is too, an extravagant ward-
robe, everything in dozens, and silk dresses like a lady. They
are there in my carpet-bag."

" You must leave that here," put in the man's voice.

" Of course I shall give it to you," said the mother; " it
would be strange if I should leave my child naked."

The face of the master appeared.

" It is all right/' said he.

The bargain was concluded. The mother passed the night
at the inn, gave her money and left her child, fastened again
her carpet-bag, diminished by her child's wardrobe, and very
light now, and set off next morning, expecting soon to return.
These partings are arranged tranquilly, but they are full of
despair.

A neighbour of the Thenardiers met this mother on her way,
and came in, saying :

" I have just met a woman in the street, who was crying as if
her heart would break."

When Cosette's mother had gone, the man said to his wife:

" That will do me for my note of no francs which falls due
to-morrow; I was fifty francs short. Do you know I should
have had a sheriff and a protest? You have proved a good
mousetrap with your little ones."

" Without knowing it/' said the woman*

Fantinc 147

FIRST SKETCH OF TWO EQUIVOCAL FACES

THE captured mouse was a very puny one, but the cat exulted
even over a lean mouse.

What were the Thenardiers?

We will say but a word just here; by-and-by the sketch
shall be completed.

They belonged to that bastard class formed of low people
who have risen, and intelligent people who have fallen, which
lies between the classes called middle and lower, and which
unites some of the faults of the latter with nearly all the vices
of the former, without possessing the generous impulses of the
workman, or the respectability of the bourgeois.

They were of those dwarfish natures, which, if perchance
heated by some sullen fire, easily become monstrous. The
woman was at heart a brute; the man a blackguard: both in
the highest degree capable of that hideous species of progress
which can be made towards evil. There are souls which, crab-
like, crawl continually towards darkness, going back in life
rather than advancing in it; using what experience they have
to increase their deformity; growing worse without ceasing,
and becoming steeped more and more thoroughly in an intensify-
ing wickedness. Such souls were this man and this woman.

The man especially would have been a puzzle to a physiogno-
mist. We have only to look at some men to distrust them, for
we feel the darkness of their souls in two ways. They are
restless as to what is behind them, and threatening as to what
is before them. They are full of mystery. We can no more
answer for what they have done, than for what they will do.
The shadow in their looks denounces them. If we hear them
utter a word, or see them make a gesture, we catch glimpses of
guilty secrets in their past, and dark mysteries in their future.

This Thenardier, if we may believe him, had been a soldier,
a sergeant he said; he probably had made the campaign of 1815,
and had even borne himself bravely according to all that ap-
peared. We shall see hereafter in what his bravery consisted.
The sign of his inn was an allusion to one of his feats of arms.
He had painted it himself, for he knew how to do a little of every-
thing— badly.

It was the time when the antique classical romance, which,

148 Les Miserables

after having been Clelie, sank to Lodotska, always noble, but
becoming more and more vulgar, falling from Mdlle. de Scuderi
to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette
to Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, was firing the loving souls of
the portresses of Paris, and making some ravages even in the
suburbs. Madame Thenardier was just intelligent enough to
read that sort of book. She fed on them. She drowned what
little brain she had in them; and that had given her, while she
was yet young, and even in later life, a kind of pensive attitude
towards her husband, a knave of some calibre; a ruffian, edu-
cated almost to the extent of grammar; at once coarse and fine,
but so far as sentimentalism was concerned, reading Pigault
Lebrun, and in " all which related to the sex," as he said in his
jargon, a correct dolt without adulteration. His wife was twelve
or fifteen years younger than he. At a later period, when the
hair of the romantic weepers began to grow grey, when Megere
parted company with Pamela, Madame Thenardier was only
a gross bad woman who had relished stupid novels. Now, people
do not read stupidities with impunity. The result was, that
her eldest child was named Eponine, and the youngest, who had
just escaped being called Gulnare, owed to some happy diversion
made by a novel of Ducray Duminil, the mitigation of Azelma.
However, let us say by the way, all things are not ridiculous
and superficial in this singular epoch to which we allude, and
which might be termed the anarchy of baptismal names. Besides
this romantic element which we have noticed, there is the social
symptom. To-day it is not unfrequent to see herdsboys named
Arthur, Alfred, and Alphonse, and viscounts — if there be any
remaining — named Thomas, Peter, or James. This change,
which places the " elegant " name on the plebeian and the
country appellation on the aristocrat, is only an eddy in the tide
of equality. The irresistible penetration of a new inspiration
is there as well as in everything else: beneath this apparent
discordance there is a reality grand and deep — the French
Revolution*

Fantinc 1 49

III

THE LARK

To be wicked does not insure prosperity — for the inn did not
succeed well.

Thanks to Fantine's fifty-seven francs, Thenardier had been
able to avoid a protest and to honour his signature. The next
month they were still in need of money, and the woman carried
Cosette's wardrobe to Paris and pawned it for sixty francs.
When this sum was spent, the Thenardiers began to look upon
the little girl as a child which they sheltered for charity, and
treated her as such. Her clothes being gone, they dressed her in
the cast-off garments of the little Thenardiers, that is in rags.
They fed her on the orts and ends, a little better than the dog,
and a little worse than the cat. The dog and cat were her mess-
mates. Cosette ate with them under the table in a wooden dish
like theirs.

Her mother, as we shall see hereafter, who had found a place

at M sur M wrote, or rather had some one write for her,

every month, inquiring news of her child. The Thenardiers
replied invariably:

" Cosette is doing wonderfully well."

The six months passed away: the mother sent seven francs
for the seventh month, and continued to send this sum regularly
month after month. The year was not ended before Thenardier
said: " A pretty price that is. What does she expect us to do
for her seven francs? " And he wrote demanding twelve francs.
The mother, whom he persuaded that her child was happy and
doing well, assented, and forwarded the twelve francs.

There are certain natures which cannot have love on one side
without hatred on the other. This Thenardier mother passion-
ately loved her own little ones : this made her detest the young
stranger. It is sad to think that a mother's love can have such
a dark side. Little as was the place Cosette occupied in the
house, it seemed to her that this little was taken from her
children, and that the little one lessened the air hers breathed.
This woman, like many women of her kind, had a certain amount
of caresses, and blows, and hard words to dispense each day.
If she had not had Cosette, it is certain that her daughters,

i 50 Les Miserables

idolised as they were, would have received all, but the little
stranger did them the service to attract the blows to herself; her
children had only the caresses. Cosette could not stir that she
did not draw down upon herself a hailstorm of undeserved
and severe chastisements. A weak, soft little one who knew
nothing of this world, or of God, continually ill-treated, scolded,
punished, beaten, she saw beside her two other young things
like herself, who lived in a halo of glory !

The woman was unkind to Cosette, Eponine and Azelma
were unkind also. Children at that age are only copies of the
mother; the size is reduced, that is all.

A year passed and then another.

People used to say in the village:

" What good people these Thenardiers are ! They are not
rich, and yet they bring up a poor child, that has been left with
them."

They thought Cosette was forgotten by her mother.

Meantime Thenardier, having learned in some obscure way
that the child was probably illegitimate, and that its mother
could not acknowledge it, demanded fifteen francs a month,
saying " that the ' creature ' was growing and eating," and
threatening to send her away. " She won't humbug me," he
exclaimed, " I will confound her with the brat in the midst of
her concealment. I must have more money." The mother
paid the fifteen francs.

From year to year the child grew, and her misery also.

So long as Cosette was very small, she was the scapegoat of
the two other children; as soon as she began to grow a little,
that is to say, before she was five years old, she became the
servant of the house.

Five years old, it will be said, that is improbable. Alas I it
is true, social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not seen
lately the trial of Dumollard, an orphan become a bandit, who,
from the age of five, say the official documents, being alone in
the world, " worked for his living and stole! "

Cosette was made to run of errands, sweep the rooms, the
yard, the street, wash the dishes, and even carry burdens. The
Thenardiers felt doubly authorised to treat her thus, as the

mother, who still remained at M sur M , began to be

remiss in her payments. Some months remained due.

Had this mother returned to Montfermiel, at the end of these
three years, she would not have known her child. Cosette, so
fresh and pretty when she came to that house, was now thin

Famine 151

and wan. She had a peculiar restless air. Sly! said the
Thenardiers.

Injustice had made her sullen, and misery had made her
ugly. Her fine eyes only remained to her, and they were pain-
ful to look at, for, large as they were, they seemed to increase
the sadness !

It was a harrowing sight to see in the winter time the poor
child, not yet six years old, shivering under the tatters of what
was once a calico dress, sweeping the street before daylight with
an enormous broom in her little red hands and tears in her large
eyes.

In the place she was called the Lark. People like figurative
names and were pleased thus to name this little being, not
larger than a bird, trembling, frightened, and shivering, awake
every morning first of all in the house and the village, always
in the street or in the fields before dawn.

Only the poor lark never sang.

BOOK FIFTH— THE DESCENT

HISTORY OF AN IMPROVEMENT IN JET-WORK

WHAT had become of this mother, in the meanwhile, who,
according to the people of Montfermeil, seemed to have aban-
doned her child ? where was she ? what was she doing ?

After leaving her little Cosette with the Thenardiers, she went
on her way and arrived at M sur M .

This, it will be remembered, was in 1818.

Fantine had left the province some twelve years before, and

M sur M had greatly changed in appearance. While

Fantine had been slowly sinking deeper and deeper into misery,
her native village had been prosperous.

Within about two years there had been accomplished there
one of those industrial changes which are the great events of
small communities.

This circumstance is important and we think it well to relate
it, we might even say to italicise it.

From time immemorial the special occupation of the inhabit-
ants of M sur M had been the imitation of English jets

and German black glass trinkets. The business had always
been dull in consequence of the high price of the raw material,
which reacted upon the manufacture. At the time of Fantine's

return to M sur M an entire transformation had been

effected in the production of these ' black goods.' Towards the
end of the year 1815, an unknown man had established himself
in the city, and had conceived the idea of substituting gum-lac
for resin in the manufacture; and for bracelets, in particular,
he made the clasps by simply bending the ends of the metal
together instead of soldering them.

This very slight change had worked a revolution.

This very slight change had in fact reduced the price of the
raw material enormously, and this had rendered it possible,
first, to raise the wages of the labourer — a benefit to the country
— secondly, to improve the quality of the goods — an advantage
for the consumer — and thirdly, to sell them at a lower price

152

Fantinc 153

even while making three times the profit — a gain for the
manufacturer.

Thus we have three results from one idea.

In less than three years the inventor of this process had
become rich, which was well, and had made all around him rich,
which was better. He was a stranger in the Department.
Nothing was known of his birth, and but little of his early
history.

The story went that he came to the city with very little
money, a few hundred francs at most.

From this slender capital, under the inspiration of an ingenious
idea, made fruitful by order and care, he had drawn a fortune
for himself, and a fortune for the whole region.

On his arrival at M sur M he had the dress, the

manners, and the language of a labourer only. »

It seems that the very day on which he thus obscurely entered

the little city of M sur M , just at dusk on a December

evening, with his bundle on his back, and a thorn stick in his
hand, a great fire had broken out in the town-house. This man
rushed into the fire, and saved, at the peril of his life, two
children, who proved to be those of the captain of the gen-
darmerie, and in the hurry and gratitude of the moment no one
thought to ask him for his passport. He was known from that
time by the name of Father Madeleine.

MADELEINE

HE was a man of about fifty, who always appeared to be pre-
occupied in mind, and who was good-natured; this was all that
could be said about him.
Thanks to the rapid progress of this manufacture, to which

he had given such wonderful life, M sur M had become

a considerable centre of business. Immense purchases were
made there every year for the Spanish markets, where there is

a large demand for jet work, and M sur M , in this

branch of trade, almost competed with London and Berlin.
The profits of Father Madeleine were so great that by the end of
the second year he was able to build a large factory, in which
there were two immense workshops, one for men and the other
for women: whoever was needy could go there and be sure of

154 Les Miserables

finding work and wages. Father Madeleine required the men
to be willing, the women to be of good morals, and all to be
honest. He divided the workshops, and separated the sexes
in order that the girls and the women might not lose their
modesty. On this point he was inflexible, although it was the
only one in which he was in any degree rigid. He was con-
firmed in this severity by the opportunities for corruption that

abounded in M sur M , it being a garrisoned city.

Finally his coming had been a beneficence, and his presence
was a providence. Before the arrival of Father Madeleine, the
whole region was languishing; now it was all alive with the
healthy strength of labour. An active circulation kindled
everything and penetrated everywhere. Idleness and misery
were unknown. There was no pocket so obscure that it did not
contain some money and no dwelling so poor that it was not the
abode of some joy.

Father Madeleine employed everybody; he had only one
condition, " Be an honest man! " " Be an honest woman! "

As we have said, in the midst of this activity, of which he was
the cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine had made his fortune,
but, very strangely for a mere man of business, that did not
appear to be his principal care. It seemed that he thought
much for others, and little for himself. In 1820, it was known
that he had six hundred and thirty thousand francs standing
to his credit in the banking-house of Laffitte; but before setting
aside this six hundred and thirty thousand francs for himself,
he had expended more than a million for the city and for the
poor.

The hospital was poorly endowed, and he made provision for

ten additional beds. M sur M is divided into the upper

city and the lower city. The lower city, where he lived, had only
one school-house, a miserable hovel which was fast going to
ruin; he built two, one for girls, and the other for boys, and
paid the two teachers, from his own pocket, double the amount
of their meagre salary from the government; and one day, he
said to a neighbour who expressed surprise at this: " The two
highest functionaries of the state are the nurse and the school-
master." He built, at his own expense, a house of refuge, an
institution then almost unknown in France, and provided a
fund for old and infirm labourers. About his factory, as a centre,
a new quarter of the city had rapidly grown up, containing
many indigent families, and he established a pharmacy that
was free to all.

Fantine 155

At first, when he began to attract the public attention, the
good people would say: "This is a fellow who wishes to get
rich." When they saw him enrich the country before he en-
riched himself, the same good people said: "This man is
ambitious." This seemed the more probable, since he was
religious and observed the forms of the church, to a certain
extent, a thing much approved in those days. He went regu-
larly to hear mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who scented
rivalry everywhere, was not slow to borrow trouble on account
of Madeleine's religion. This deputy, who had been a member
of the Corp Legislatif of the Empire, partook of the religious
ideas of a Father of the Oratory, known by the name of Fouche,
Duke of Otranto, whose creature and friend he had been. In
private he jested a little about God. But when he saw the rich
manufacturer, Madeleine, go to low mass at seven o'clock, he
foresaw a possible candidate in opposition to himself, and he
resolved to outdo him. He took a Jesuit confessor, and went
both to high mass and to vespers. Ambition at that time was,
as the word itself imports, of the nature of a steeplechase.
The poor, as well as God, gained by the terror of the honourable
deputy, for he also established two beds at the hospital, which
made twelve.

At length, in 1819, it was reported in the city one morning,
that upon the recommendation of the prefect, and in considera-
tion of the services he had rendered to the country, Father

Madeleine had been appointed by the king, Mayor of M

sur M . Those who had pronounced the new-comer " an

ambitious man," eagerly seized this opportunity, which all men
desire, to exclaim :

" There ! what did I tell you? "

M sur M was filled with the rumour, and the report

proved to be well founded, for, a few days afterwards, the
nomination appeared in the Moniteur. The next day Father
Madeleine declined.

In the same year, 1819, the results of the new process invented
by Madeleine had a place in the Industrial Exhibition, and upon
the report of the jury, the king named the inventor a Chevalier
of the Legion of Honour. Here was a new rumour for the little
city. " Well I it was the Cross of the Legion of Honour that he
wanted." Father Madeleine declined the Cross.

Decidedly this man was an enigma, and the good people gave
up the field, saying, " After all, he is a sort of an adventurer."

As we have seen, the country owed a great deal to this manf

:S6

Les Miserables

and the poor owed him everything; he was so useful that all
were compelled to honour him, and so kind that none could help
loving him; his workmen in particular adored him, and he
received their adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity.
After he became rich, those who constituted " society " bowed
to him as they met, and, in the city, he began to be called
Monsieur Madeleine; — but his workmen and the children con-
tinued to call him Father Madeleine, and at that name his face
always wore a smile. As his wealth increased, invitations rained
in on him. " Society " claimed him. The little exclusive

parlours of M sur M , which were carefully guarded,

and in earlier days, of course, had been closed to the artisan,
opened wide their doors to the millionaire. A thousand advances
were made to him, but he refused them all.

And again the gossips were at no loss. " He is an ignorant
man, and of poor education. No one knows where he came from.
He does not know how to conduct himself in good society, and
it is by no means certain that he knows how to read."

When they saw him making money, they said, " He is a
merchant." When they saw the way in which he scattered
his money, they said, " He is ambitious." When they saw him
refuse to accept honours, they said, " He is an adventurer."
When they saw him repel the advances of the fashionable, they
said, " He is a brute."

In 1820, five years after his arrival at M sur M , the

services that he had rendered to the region were so brilliant,
and the wish of the whole population was so unanimous, that
the king again appointed him mayor of the city. He refused
again; but the prefect resisted his determination, the principal
citizens came and urged him to accept, and the people in the
streets begged him to do so ; all insisted so strongly that at last
he yielded. It was remarked that what appeared most of all
to bring him to this determination, was the almost angry
exclamation of an old woman belonging to the poorer class,
who cried out to him from her door-stone, with some temper:

" A good mayor is a good thing. Are you afraid of the good
you can do ? "

This was the third step in his ascent. Father Madeleine had
become Monsieur Madeleine, and Monsieur Madeleine now
became Monsieur the Mayor.

Fantinc 157

III

NEVERTHELESS he remained as simple as at first. He had grey
hair, a serious eye, the brown complexion of a labourer, and
the thoughtful countenance of a philosopher. He usually wore
a hat with a wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned
to the chin. He fulfilled his duties as mayor, but beyond that
his life was isolated. He talked with very few persons. He
shrank from compliments, and with a touch of the hat walked
on rapidly; he smiled to avoid talking, and gave to avoid
smiling. The women said of him : " What a good bear !" His
pleasure was to walk in the fields.

He always took his meals alone with a book open before him
in which he read. His library was small but well selected. He
loved books; books are cold but sure friends. As his growing
fortune gave him more leisure, it seemed that he profited by it

to cultivate his mind. Since he had been at M sur M ,

it was remarked from year to year that his language became
more polished, choicer, and more gentle.

In his walks he liked to carry a gun, though he seldom used
it. When he did so, however, his aim was frightfully certain.
He never killed an inoffensive animal, and never fired at any
of the small birds.

Although he was no longer young, it was reported that he
was of prodigious strength. He would offer a helping hand
to any one who needed it, help up a fallen horse, push at a
stalled wheel, or seize by the horns a bull that had broken loose.
He always had his pockets full of money when he went out, and
empty when he returned. When he passed through a village
the ragged little youngsters would run after him with joy, and
surround him like a swarm of flies.

It was surmised that he must have lived formerly in the
country, for he had all sorts of useful secrets which he taught
the peasants. He showed them how to destroy the grain-moth
by sprinkling the granary and washing the cracks of the floor
with a solution of common salt, and how to drive away the
weevil by hanging up all about the ceiling and walls, in the
pastures, and in the houses, the flowers of the orviot. He had
recipes for clearing a field of rust, of vetches, of moles, of dog-
grass, and all the parasitic herbs which live upon the grain,

i58

Les Miserables

He defended a rabbit warren against rats, with nothing but
the odour of a little Barbary pig that he placed there.

One day he saw some country people very busy pulling up
nettles; he looked at the heap of plants, uprooted, and already
wilted, and said: " This is dead; but it would be well if we
knew how to put it to some use. When the nettle is young,
the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has fila-
ments and fibres like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the
nettle is worth as much as that made from hemp. Chopped
up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned
cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals
gives a lustre to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces
a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as
it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need ?
very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall
as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that
is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be
useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it.
How much men are like the nettle! " After a short silence, he
added: "My friends, remember this, that there are no bad
herbs, and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators."

The children loved him yet more, because he knew how to
make charming little playthings out of straw and cocoanuts.

When he saw the door of a church shrouded with black, he
entered: he sought out a funeral as others seek out a christen-
ing. The bereavement and the misfortune of others attracted
him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with friends
who were in mourning, with families dressing in black, with
the priests who were sighing around a corpse. He seemed glad
to take as a text for his thoughts these funereal psalms, full of
the vision of another world. With his eyes raised to heaven,
he listened with a sort of aspiration towards all the mysteries
of the infinite, to these sad voices, which sing upon the brink
of the dark abyss of death.

He did a multitude of good deeds as secretly as bad ones are
usually done. He would steal into houses in the evening, and
furtively mount the stairs. A poor devil, on returning to his
garret, would find that his door had been opened, sometimes
even forced, during his absence. The poor man would cry out:
" Some thief has been here ! " When he got in, the first thing
that he would see would be a piece of gold lying on the table.
" The thief " who had been there was Father Madeleine.

He was affable and sad. The people used to say: " There

Famine 159

is a rich man who does not show pride. There is a fortunate
man who does not appear contented."

Some pretended that he was a mysterious personage, and
declared that no one ever went into his room, which was a true
anchorite's cell furnished with hour-glasses, and enlivened with
death's heads and cross-bones. So much was said of this kind
that some of the more mischievous of the elegant young ladies

of M sur M called on him one day and said: " Monsieur

Mayor, will you show us your room? We have heard that it
is a grotto." He smiled, and introduced them on the spot to
this " grotto." They were well punished for their curiosity.
It was a room very well fitted up with mahogany furniture,
ugly as all furniture of that kind is, and the walls covered with
shilling paper. They could see nothing but two candlesticks
of antique form that stood on the mantel, and appeared to be
silver, " for they were marked," a remark full of the spirit of
these little towns.

But none the less did it continue to be said that nobody ever
went into that chamber, and that it was a hermit's cave, a place
of dreams, a hole, a tomb.

It was also whispered that he had " immense " sums deposited
with Laffitte, with the special condition that they were always
at his immediate command, in such a way, it was added, that
Monsieur Madeleine might arrive in the morning at Laffitte's,
sign a receipt and carry away his two or three millions in ten
minutes. In reality these " two or three millions " dwindled
down, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or forty
thousand francs.

MONSIEUR MADELEINE IN MOURNING

NEAR the beginning of the year 1821, the journals announced

the decease of Monsieur Myriel, Bishop of D , " surnamed

Monseigneur Bienvenu," who died in the odour of sanctity at
the age of eighty-two years.

The Bishop of D , to add an incident which the journals

omitted, had been blind for several years before he died, and
was content therewith, his sister being with him.

Let us say by the way, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact,
on this earth where nothing is complete, one of the most
strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually

160 Les Miserables

at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a charming being, who is
there because you have need of her, and because she cannot do
without you, to know you are indispensable to her who is
necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection
by the amount of her company that she gives you, and to say to
yourself: she consecrates to me all her time, because I possess
her whole heart; to see the thought instead of the face; to be
sure of the fidelity of one being in the eclipse of the world; to
imagine the rustling of her dress the rustling of wings; to hear
her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing,
and to think that you are the centre of those steps, of those words,
of that song ; to manifest at every minute your personal attrac-
tion; to feel yourself powerful by so much the more as you are
the more infirm; to become in darkness, and by reason of dark-
ness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few happy
lots can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the
conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves — say rather,
loved in spite of ourselves; this conviction the blind have. In
their calamity, to be served, is to be caressed. Are they de-
prived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters.
And what a love! a love wholly founded in purity. There is
no blindness where there is certainty. The soul gropes in
search of a soul, and finds it. And that soul, so found and proven,
is a woman. A hand sustains you, it is hers; lips lightly touch
your forehead, they are her lips; you hear one breathing near
you, it is she. To have her wholly, from her devotion to her
pity, never to be left, to have that sweet weakness which is your
aid, to lean upon that unbending reed, to touch Providence with
your hands and be able to grasp it in your arms; God made
palpable, what transport! The heart, that dark but celestial
flower, bursts into a mysterious bloom. You would not give
that shade for all light! The angel-soul is there, for ever there;
if she goes away, it is only to return; she fades away in dream
and reappears in reality. You feel an approaching warmth,
she is there. You overflow with serenity, gaiety, and ecstasy;
you are radiant in your darkness. And the thousand little
cares! The nothings which are enormous in this void. The
most unspeakable accents of the womanly voice employed to
soothe you, and making up to you the vanished universe ! You
are caressed through the soul. You see nothing, but you feel
yourself adored. It is a paradise of darkness.

From this paradise Monseigneur Bienvenu passed to the
other.

Fantine 161

The announcement of his death was reproduced in the local

paper of M sur M . Monsieur Madeleine appeared next

morning dressed in black with crape on his hat.

This mourning was noticed and talked about all over the
town. It appeared to throw some light upon the origin of
Monsieur Madeleine. The conclusion was that he was in some
way related to the venerable bishop. " He wears black for the

Bishop of D ," was the talk of the drawing-rooms ; it elevated

Monsieur Madeleine very much, and gave him suddenly, and

in a trice, marked consideration in the noble world of M

sur M . The microscopic Faubourg Saint Germain of the

little place thought of raising the quarantine for Monsieur
Madeleine, the probable relative of a bishop. Monsieur Made-
leine perceived the advancement that he had obtained, by
the greater reverence of the old ladies, and the more frequent
smiles of the young ladies. One evening, one of the dowagers
of that little great world, curious by right of age, ventured to
ask him: " The mayor is doubtless a relative of the late Bishop
of D ? "

He said: " No, madame."

" But," the dowager persisted, " you wear mourning for
him? "

He answered : " In my youth I was a servant in his family."

It was also remarked that whenever there passed through the
city a young Savoyard who was tramping about the country
in search of chimneys to sweep, the mayor would send for him,
ask his name and give him money. The little Savoyards told
each other, and many of them passed that way.

VAGUE FLASHES IN THE HORIZON

LITTLE by little in the lapse of time all opposition had ceased.
At first there had been, as always happens with those who rise
by their own efforts, slanders and calumnies against Monsieur
Madeleine, soon this was reduced to satire, then it was only wit,
then it vanished entirely; respect became complete, unanimous,
cordial, and there came a moment, about 1821, when the words

Monsieur the Mayor were pronounced at M sur M with

almost the same accent as the words Monseigneur the Bishop at
D in 1815. People came from thirty miles around to con-

1 62 Les Miserables

suit Monsieur Madeleine. He settled differences, he prevented
lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Everybody, of his own will,
chose him for judge. He seemed to have the book of the
natural law by heart. A contagion of veneration had, in the
course of six or seven years, step by step, spread over the whole
country.

One man alone, in the city and its neighbourhood, held him-
self entirely clear from this contagion, and, whatever Father
Madeleine did, he remained indifferent, as if a sort of instinct,
unchangeable and imperturbable, kept him awake and on the
watch. It would seem, indeed, that there is in certain men the
veritable instinct of a beast, pure and complete like all instinct,
which creates antipathies and sympathies, which separates one
nature from another for ever, which never hesitates, never is
perturbed, never keeps silent, and never admits itself to be in
the wrong; clear in its obscurity, infallible, imperious, refrac-
tory under all the counsels of intelligence, and all the solvents
of reason, and which, whatever may be their destinies, secretly
warns the dog-man of the presence of the cat-man, and the
fox-man of the presence of the lion-man.

Often, when Monsieur Madeleine passed along the street,
calm, affectionate, followed by the benedictions of all, it
happened that a tall man, wearing a flat hat and an iron-grey
coat, and armed with a stout cane, would turn around abruptly
behind him, and follow him with his eyes until he disappeared,
crossing his arms, slowly shaking his head, and pushing his
upper with his under lip up to his nose, a sort of significant
grimace which might be rendered by: " But what is that man?
I am sure I have seen him somewhere. At all events, I at
least am not his dupe."

This personage, grave with an almost threatening gravity,
was one of those who, even in a hurried interview, command
the attention of the observer.

His name was Javert, and he was one of the police.

He exercised at M sur M the unpleasant, but useful,

function of inspector. He was not there at the date of Made-
leine's arrival. Javert owed his position to the protection of
Monsieur Chabouillet, the secretary of the Minister of State,
Count Angles, then prefect of police at Paris. When Javert
arrived at M sur M the fortune of the great manu-
facturer had been made already, and Father Madeleine had
become Monsieur Madeleine.

Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy in which

Fantine 163

can be traced an air of meanness mingled with an air of authority.
Javert had this physiognomy, without meanness.

It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eye we
should distinctly see this strange fact that each individual of
the human species corresponds to some one of the species of the
animal creation; and we should clearly recognise the truth,
hardly perceived by thinkers, that, from the oyster to the eagle,
from the swine to the tiger, all animals are in man, and that
each of them is in a man; sometimes even, several of them at
a time.

Animals are nothing but the forms of our virtues and vices,
wandering before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls.
God shows them to us to make us reflect. Only, as animals are
but shadows, God has not made them capable of education in
the complete sense of the word. Why should he? On the
contrary, our souls being realities and having their peculiar end,
God has given them intelligence, that is to say, the possibility
of education. Social education, well attended to, can always
draw out of a soul, whatever it may be, the usefulness that it
contains.

Be this said, nevertheless, from the restricted point of view
of the apparent earthly life, and without prejudice to the deep
question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings that
are not man. The visible me in no way authorises the thinker
to deny the latent me. With this reservation, let us pass on.

Now, if we admit for a moment that there is in every man
some one of the species of the animal creation, it will be easy
for us to describe the guardian of the peace, Javert.

The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of
wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother, lest on
growing up it should devour the other little ones.

Give a human face to this dog son of a wolf, and you will
have Javert.

Javert was born in a prison. His mother was a fortune-
teller whose husband was in the galleys. He grew up to think
himself without the pale of society, and despaired of ever
entering it. He noticed that society closes its doors, without
pity, on two classes of men, those who attack it and those who
guard it; he could choose between these two classes only; at
the same time he felt that he had an indescribable basis of
rectitude, order, and honesty, associated with an irrepressible
hatred for that gypsy race to which he belonged. He entered
the police. He succeeded. At forty he was an inspector.

1 64 Les Miserables

In his youth he had been stationed in the galleys at the South*

Before going further, let us understand what we mean by the
words human face, which we have just now applied to Javert.

The human face of Javert consisted of a snub nose, with two
deep nostrils, which were bordered by large bushy whiskers that
covered both his cheeks. One felt ill at ease the first time he
saw those two forests and those two caverns. When Javert
laughed, which was rarely and terribly, his thin lips parted, and
showed, not only his teeth, but his gums; and around his nose
there was a wrinkle as broad and wild as the muzzle of a fallow
deer. Javert, when serious, was a bull-dog; when he laughed,
he was a tiger. For the rest, a small head, large jaws, hair
hiding the forehead and falling over the eyebrows, between the
eyes a permanent central frown, a gloomy look, a mouth pinched
and frightful, and an air of fierce command.

This man was a compound of two sentiments, very simple
and very good in themselves, but he almost made them evil by
his exaggeration of them: respect for authority and hatred of
rebellion; and in his eyes, theft, murder, all crimes, were only
forms of rebellion. In his strong and implicit faith he included
all who held any function in the state, from the prime minister
to the constable. He had nothing but disdain, aversion, and
disgust for all who had once overstepped the bounds of the law.
He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the one hand
he said: "A public officer cannot be deceived; a magistrate
never does wrong!" And on the other he said: "They are
irremediably lost; no good can come out of them." He shared
fully the opinion of those extremists who attribute to human
laws an indescribable power of making, or, if you will, of deter-
mining, demons, and who place a Styx at the bottom of society.
He was stoical, serious, austere: a dreamer of stern dreams;
humble and haughty, like all fanatics. His stare was cold and
as piercing as a gimblet. His whole life was contained in these
two words: waking and watching. He marked out a straight
path through the most tortuous thing in the world; his con-
science was bound up in his utility, his religion in his duties,
and he was a spy as others are priests. Woe to him who should
fall into his hands! He would have arrested his father if
escaping from the galleys, and denounced his mother for violat-
ing her ticket of leave. And he would have done it with that
sort of interior satisfaction that springs from virtue. His life
was a life of privations, isolation, self-denial, and chastity:
never any amusement. It was implacable duty, absorbed in

Fantine 165

the police as the Spartans were absorbed in Sparta, a pitiless
detective, a fierce honesty, a marble-hearted informer, Brutus
united with Vidocq.

The whole person of Javert expressed the spy and the
informer. The mystic school of Joseph de Maistre, which at
that time enlivened what were called the ultra journals with
high-sounding cosmogonies, would have said that Javert was a
symbol. You could not see his forehead which disappeared
under his hat, you could not see his eyes which were lost under
his brows, you could not see his chin which was buried in his
cravat, you could not see his hands which were drawn up into
his sleeves, you could not see his cane which he carried under
his coat. But when the time came, you would see spring all at
once out of this shadow, as from an ambush, a steep and narrow
forehead, an ominous look, a threatening chin, enormous hands,
and a monstrous club.

In his leisure moments, which were rare, although he hated
books, he read ; wherefore he was not entirely illiterate. This
was perceived also from a certain emphasis in his speech.

He was free from vice, we have said. When he was satisfied
with himself, he allowed himself a pinch of snuff. That proved
that he was human.

It will be easily understood that Javert was the terror of all
that class which the annual statistics of the Minister of Justice
include under the heading: People without a fixed abode. To
speak the name of Javert would put all such to flight; the face
of Javert petrified them.

Such was this formidable man.

Javert was like an eye always fixed on Monsieur Madeleine;
an eye full of suspicion and conjecture. Monsieur Madeleine
finally noticed it, but seemed to consider it of no consequence.
He asked no question of Javert, he neither sought him nor
shunned him, he endured this unpleasant and annoying stare
without appearing to pay any attention to it. He treated
Javert as he did everybody else, at ease and with kindness.

From some words that Javert had dropped, it was guessed
that he had secretly hunted up, with that curiosity which
belongs to his race, and which is more a matter of instinct than
of will, all the traces of his previous life which Father Madeleine
had left elsewhere. He appeared to know, and he said some-
times in a covert way, that somebody had gathered certain
information in a certain region about a certain missing family.
Once he happened to say, speaking to himself: " I think I have

1 66 Les Miserables

got him ! " Then for three days he remained moody without
speaking a word. It appeared that the clue which he thought
lie had was broken.

But, and this is the necessary corrective to what the meaning
of certain words may have presented in too absolute a sense,
there can be nothing really infallible in a human creature, and
the very peculiarity of instinct is that it can be disturbed,
followed up, and routed. Were this not so it would be superior
to intelligence, and the beast would be in possession of a purer
light than man.

Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the com-
pletely natural air and the tranquillity of Monsieur Madeleine.

One day, however, his strange manner appeared to make an
impression upon Monsieur Madeleine. The occasion was this :

FATHER FAUCHELEVENT

MONSIEUR MADELEINE was walking one morning along one of

the unpaved alleys of M sur M ; he heard a shouting

and saw a crowd at a little distance. He went to the spot.
An old man, named Father Fauchelevent, had fallen under his
cart, his horse being thrown down.

This Fauchelevent was one of the few who were still enemies
of Monsieur Madeleine at this time. When Madeleine arrived
in the place, the business of Fauchelevent, who was a notary of
long-standing, and very well-read for a rustic, was beginning to
decline. Fauchelevent had seen this mere artisan grow rich,
while he himself, a professional man, had been going to ruin.
This had filled him with jealousy, and he had done what he
could on all occasions to injure Madeleine. Then came bank-
ruptcy, and the old man, having nothing but a horse and cart,
as he was without family, and without children, was compelled
to earn his living as a carman.

The horse had his thighs broken, and could not stir. The
old man was caught between the wheels. Unluckily he had
fallen so that the whole weight rested upon his breast. The
cart was heavily loaded. Father Fauchelevent was uttering
doleful groans. They had tried to pull him out, but in vain.
An unlucky effort, inexpert help, a false push, might crush him.
It was impossible to extricate him otherwise than by raising the

Fantine 167

waggon from beneath. Javert, who came up at the moment of
the accident, had sent for a jack.

Monsieur Madeleine came. The crowd fell back with respect.

" Help," cried old Fauchelevent. " Who is a good fellow to
save an old man? "

Monsieur Madeleine turned towards the bystanders:

" Has anybody a jack? "

" They have gone for one," replied a peasant.

" How soon will it be here? "

" We sent to the nearest place, to Flachot Place, where there
is a blacksmith; but it will take a good quarter of an hour
at least."

" A quarter of an hour ! " exclaimed Madeleine.

It had rained the night before, the road was soft, the cart was
sinking deeper every moment, and pressing more and more on
the breast of the old carman. It was evident that in less than
five minutes his ribs would be crushed.

" We cannot wait a quarter of an hour," said Madeleine to,
the peasants who were looking on.

" We must! "

" But it will be too late! Don't you see that the waggon is
sinking all the while? "

" It can't be helped."

" Listen," resumed Madeleine, " there is room enough stirt
under the waggon for a man to crawl in, and lift it with his-
back. In half a minute we will have the poor man out. Is-
there nobody here who has strength and courage? Five-
louis d'ors for him! "

Nobody stirred in the crowd.

" Ten louis," said Madeleine.

The bystanders dropped their eyes. One of them muttered:
" He'd have to be devilish stout. And then he would risk
getting crushed."

" Come," said Madeleine, " twenty louis."

The same silence.

" It is not willingness which they lack," said a voice.

Monsieur Madeleine turned and saw Javert. He had not-
noticed him when he came.

Javert continued :

" It is strength. He must be a terrible man who can raise a
waggon like that on his back."

Then, looking fixedly at Monsieur Madeleine, he went on.
emphasising every word that he uttered:

1 68 Les Miserables

" Monsieur Madeleine, I have known but one man capable
of doing what you call for."

Madeleine shuddered.

Javert added, with an air of indifference but without taking
his eyes from Madeleine:

" He was a convict."

"Ah! "said Madeleine.

" In the galleys at Toulon."

Madeleine became pale.

Meanwhile the cart was slowly settling down. Father
Fauchelevent roared and screamed:

" I am dying ! my ribs are breaking ! a jack ! anything ! oh ! "

Madeleine looked around him:

" Is there nobody, then, who wants to earn twenty louis and
save this poor old man's life."

None of the bystanders moved. Javert resumed:

" I have known but one man who could take the place of a
jack; that was that convict."

" Oh! how it crushes me! " cried the old man.

Madeleine raised his head, met the falcon eye of Javert still
fixed upon him, looked at the immovable peasants, and smiled
sadly. Then, without saying a word, he fell on his knees, and
even before the crowd had time to utter a cry, he was under
the cart.

There was an awful moment of suspense and of silence.

Madeleine, lying almost flat under the fearful weight, was
twice seen to try in vain to bring his elbows and knees nearer
together. They cried out to him: "Father Madeleine! come
out from there! " Old Fauchelevent himself said: " Monsieur
Madeleine! go away! I must die, you see that; leave me! you
will be crushed too." Madeleine made no answer.

The bystanders held their breath. The wheels were still
sinking and it had now become almost impossible for Madeleine
to extricate himself.

All at once the enormous mass started, the cart rose slowly,
the wheels came half out of the ruts. A smothered voice was
heard, crying: "Quick! help!" It was Madeleine, who had
just made a final effort.

They all rushed to the work. The devotion of one man had
given strength and courage to all. The cart was lifted by
twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent was safe.

Madeleine arose. He was very pale, though dripping with
sweat. His clothes were torn and covered with mud. All

Fantine 169

wept. The old man kissed his knees and called him the good
God. He himself wore on his face an indescribable expression
of joyous and celestial suffering, and he looked with tranquil
eye upon Javert, who was still watching him.

VII

FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER AT PARIS

FAUCHELEVENT had broken his knee-pan in his fall. Father
Madeleine had him carried to an infirmary that he had estab-
lished for his workmen in the same building with his factory,
which was attended by two sisters of charity. The next morn-
ing the old man found a thousand franc bill upon the stand by
the side of the bed, with this note in the handwriting of Father
Madeleine : 1 have purchased your horse and cart. The cart was
broken and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent got well, but
he had a stiff knee. Monsieur Madeleine, through the recom-
mendations of the sisters and the cure, got the old man a place
as gardener at a convent in the Quartier Saint Antoine at Paris.

Some time afterwards Monsieur Madeleine was appointed
mayor. The first time that Javert saw Monsieur Madeleine
clothed with the scarf which gave him full authority over the
city, he felt the same sort of shudder which a bull-dog would
feel who should scent a wolf in his master's clothes. From that
time he avoided him as much as he could. When the necessities
of the service imperiously demanded it, and he could not do
otherwise than come in contact with the mayor, he spoke to
him with profound respect.

The prosperity which Father Madeleine had created at M

sur M , in addition to the visible signs that we have pointed

out, had another symptom which, although not visible, was not the
less significant. This never fails. When the population is suffer-
ing, when there is lack of work, when trade falls off, the tax-payer,
constrained by poverty, resists taxation, exhausts and over-
runs the delays allowed by law, and the government is forced
to incur large expenditures in the costs of levy and collection.
When work is abundant, when the country is rich and happy,
the tax is easily paid and costs the state but little to collect.
It may be said that poverty and public wealth have an infallible
thermometer in the cost of the collection of the taxes. In seven
years, the cost of the collection of the taxes had been reduced
three-quarters in the district of M sur M , so that that

170 Les Miserables

district was frequently referred to especially by Monsieur de
Villele, then Minister of Finance.

Such was the situation of the country when Fantine returned.
No one remembered her. Luckily the door of M. Madeleine's
factory was like the face of a friend. She presented herself
there, and was admitted into the workshop for women. The
business was entirely new to Fantine; she could not be very
expert in it, and consequently did not receive much for her
day's work; but that little was enough, the problem was
solved; she was earning her living.

VIII

MADAME VICTURNIEN SPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON
MORALITY

WHEN Fantine realised how she was living, she had a moment
of joy. To live honestly by her own labour; what a heavenly
boon! The taste for labour returned to her, in truth. She
bought a mirror, delighted herself with the sight of her youth,
her fine hair and her fine teeth, forgot many things, thought of
nothing save Cosette and the possibilities of the future, and was
almost happy. She hired a small room and furnished it on the
credit of her future labour; a remnant of her habits of disorder.

Not being able to say that she was married, she took good
care, as we have already intimated, not to speak of her little girl.

At first, as we have seen, she paid the Thenardiers punctually.
As she only knew how to sign her name she was obliged to
write through a public letter-writer.

She wrote often; that was noticed. They began to whisper
in the women's workshop that Fantine " wrote letters," and
that " she had airs." For prying into any human affairs, none
are equal to those whom it does not concern. " Why does this
gentleman never come till dusk? " " Why does Mr. So-and-so
never hang his key on the nail on Thursday? " " Why does he
always take the by-streets?" "Why does madame always
leave her carriage before getting to the house? " " Why does
she send to buy a quire of writing-paper when she has her
portfolio full of it? " etc. etc. There are persons who, to solve
these enigmas, which are moreover perfectly immaterial to them,
spend more money, waste more time, and give themselves more
trouble than would suffice for ten good deeds ; and that gratuit-
ously, and for the pleasure of it, without being paid for their

Fantinc 171

curiosity in any other way than by curiosity. They will follow
this man or that woman whole days, stand guard for hours at
the corners of the street, under the entrance of a passage-way,
at night, in the cold and in the rain, bribe messengers, get
hack-drivers and lackeys drunk, fee a chambermaid, or buy a
porter. For what? for nothing. Pure craving to see, to know,
and to find out. Pure itching for scandal. And often these
secrets made known, these mysteries published, these enigmas
brought into the light of day, lead to catastrophes, to duels, to
failures, to the ruin of families, and make lives wretched, to
the great joy of those who have " discovered all " without any
interest, and from pure instinct. A sad thing.

Some people are malicious from the mere necessity of talking.
Their conversation, tattling in the drawing-room, gossip in the
antechamber, is like those fireplaces that use up wood rapidly;
they need a great deal of fuel ; the fuel is their neighbour.

So Fantine was watched.

Beyond this, more than one was jealous of her fair hair and
of her white teeth.

It was reported that in the shop, with all the rest about her,
she often turned aside to wipe away a tear. Those were
moments when she thought of her child; perhaps also of the
man whom she had loved.

It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the
past.

It was ascertained that she wrote, at least twice a month, and
always to the same address, and that she prepaid the postage.
They succeeded in learning the address: Monsieur, Monsieur
Thenardier, inn-keeper, Montjermeil. The public letter-writer,
a simple old fellow, who could not fill his stomach with red-
wine without emptying his pocket of his secrets, was made to
reveal this at a drinking-house. In short, it became known
that Fantine had a child. " She must be that sort of a woman."
And there was one old gossip who went to Montfermiel, talked
with the Thenardiers, and said on her return: " For my thirty-
five francs, I have found out all about it. I have seen the
child ! "

The busybody who did this was a beldame, called Madame
Victurnien, keeper and guardian of everybody's virtue.
Madame Victurnien was fifty-six years old, and wore a mask of
old age over her mask of ugliness. Her voice trembled, and
she was capricious. It seemed strange, but this woman had
been young. In her youth, in '93, she married a monk who

172 Les Miserables

had escaped from the cloister in a red cap, and passed from the
Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, sour, sharp,
crabbed, almost venomous; never forgetting her monk, whose
widow she was, and who had ruled and curbed her harshly.
She was a nettle bruised by a frock. At the restoration she
became a bigot, and so energetically, that the priests had
pardoned her monk episode. She had a little property, which
she had bequeathed to a religious community with great flourish.
She was in very good standing at the bishop's palace in Arras.
This Madame Victurnien then went to Montfermeil, and
returned saying: " I have seen the child."

All this took time; Fantine had been more than a year at
the factory, when one morning the overseer of the workshop
handed her, on behalf of the mayor, fifty francs, saying that
she was no longer wanted in the shop, and enjoining her, on
behalf of the mayor, to leave the city.

This was the very same month in which the Thenardiers,
after having asked twelve francs instead of six, had demanded
fifteen francs instead of twelve.

Fantine was thunderstruck. She could not leave the city;
she was in debt for her lodging and her furniture. Fifty francs
were not enough to clear off that debt. She faltered out some
suppliant words. The overseer gave her to understand that
she must leave the shop instantly. Fantine was moreover only
a moderate worker. Overwhelmed with shame even more than
with despair, she left the shop, and returned to her room. Her
fault then was now known to all !

She felt no strength to say a word. She was advised to see
the mayor; she dared not. The mayor gave her fifty francs,
because he was kind, and sent her away, because he was just.
She bowed to that decree.

SUCCESS OF MADAME VICTURNIEN

THE monk's widow was then good for something.

Monsieur Madeleine had known nothing of all this. These
are combinations of events of which life is full. It was Monsieur
Madeleine's habit scarcely ever to enter the women's workshop.

He had placed at the head of this shop an old spinster whom
the cure had recommended to him, and he had entire confidence
in this overseer, a very respectable person, firm, just, upright,

Fantine 173

full of that charity which consists in giving, but not having to
the same extent that charity which consists in understanding
and pardoning. Monsieur Madeleine left everything to her.
The best men are often compelled to delegate their authority.
It was in the exercise of this full power, and with the conviction
that she was doing right, that the overseer had framed the
indictment, tried, condemned, and executed Fantine.

As to the fifty francs, she had given them from a fund that
Monsieur Madeleine had intrusted her with for alms-giving and
aid to the work-women, and of which she rendered no account.

Fantine offered herself as a servant in the neighbourhood;
she went from one house to another. Nobody wanted her.
She could not leave the city. The second-hand dealer to whom
she was in debt for her furniture, and such furniture ! had said
to her: " If you go away, I will have you arrested as a thief."
The landlord, whom she owed for rent, had said to her: " You
are young and pretty, you can pay." She divided the fifty
francs between the landlord and the dealer, returned to the
latter three-quarters of his goods, kept only what was necessary,
and found herself without work, without position, having
nothing but her bed, and owing still about a hundred francs.

She began to make coarse shirts for the soldiers of the garri-
son, and earned twelve sous a day. Her daughter cost her ten.
It was at this time that she began to get behindhand with the
Thenardiers.

However, an old woman, who lit her candle for her when she
came home at night, taught her the art of living in misery.
Behind living on a little, lies the art of living on nothing. They
are two rooms; the first is obscure, the second is utterly dark.

Fantine learned how to do entirely without fire in winter,
how to give up a bird that eats a farthing's worth of millet
every other day, how to make a coverlid of her petticoat, and a
petticoat of her coverlid, how to save her candle in taking her
meals by the light of an opposite window. Few know how
much certain feeble beings, who have grown old in privation and
honesty, can extract from a sou. This finally becomes a talent.
Fantine acquired this sublime talent and took heart a little*

During these times, she said to a neighbour : " Bah ! I say to
myself: by sleeping but five hours and working all the rest at
my sewing, I shall always succeed in nearly earning bread.
And then, when one is sad, one eats less. Well! what with
sufferings, troubles, a little bread on the one hand, anxiety on
the other, all that will keep me alive."

i/4 Les Miserablcs

In this distress, to have had her little daughter would have
been a strange happiness. She thought of having her come.
But what? to make her share her privation? and then, she
owed the Thenardiers? How could she pay them? and the
journey! how pay for that?

The old woman, who had given her what might be called
lessons in indigent life, was a pious woman, Marguerite by name,
a devotee of genuine devotion, poor, and charitable to the poor,
and also to the rich, knowing how to write just enough to sign
Margeritte, and believing in God, which is science.

There are many of these virtues in low places; some day
they will be on high. This life has a morrow.

At first, Fantine was so much ashamed that she did not dare
to go out.

When she was in the street, she imagined that people turned
behind her and pointed at her; everybody looked at her and
no one greeted her; the sharp and cold disdain of the passers-by
penetrated her, body and soul, like a north wind.

In small cities an unfortunate woman seems to be laid bare
to the sarcasm and the curiosity of all. In Paris, at least,
nobody knows you, and that obscurity is a covering. Oh ! how
she longed to go to Paris ! impossible.

She must indeed become accustomed to disrespect as she had
to poverty. Little by little she learned her part. After two
or three months she shook off her shame and went out as if
there were nothing in the way. " It is all one to me," said she.

She went and came, holding her head up and wearing a bitter
smile, and felt that she was becoming shameless.

Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her pass her window,
noticed the distress of " that creature," thanks to her " put
back to her place," and congratulated herself. The malicious
have a dark happiness.

Excessive work fatigued Fantine, and the slight dry cough
that she had increased. She sometimes said to her neighbour,
Marguerite, " just feel how hot my hands are."

In the morning, however, when with an old broken comb she
combed her fine hair which flowed down in silky waves, she
enjoyed a moment of happiness,

Fantine 175

RESULTS OF THE SUCCESS

SHE had been discharged towards the end of winter; summer
passed away, but winter returned. Short days, less work. In
winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches
morning, there is fog, and mist, the window is frosted, and you
cannot see clearly. The sky is but the mouth of a cave. The
whole day is the cave. The sun has the appearance of a pauper.
Frightful season! Winter changes into stone the water of
heaven and the heart of man. Her creditors harassed her.

Fantine earned too little. Her debts had increased. The
Thenardiers being poorly paid, were constantly writing letters
to her, the contents of which disheartened her, while the postage
was ruining her. One day they wrote to her that her little
Cosette was entirely destitute of clothing for the cold weather,
that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send
at least ten francs for that. She received the letter and crushed
it in her hand for a whole day. In the evening she went into
a barber's shop at the corner of the street, and pulled out her
comb. Her beautiful fair hair fell below her waist.

" What beautiful hair ! " exclaimed the barber.

" How much will you give me for it? " said she.

" Ten francs."

" Cut it off."

She bought a knit skirt and sent it to the Thenardiers.

This skirt made the Thenardiers furious. It was the money
that they wanted. They gave the skirt to Eponine. The poor
lark still shivered.

Fantine thought: " My child is no longer cold, I have clothed
her with my hair." She put on a little round cap which con-
cealed her shorn head, and with that she was still pretty.

A gloomy work was going on in Fantine's heart.

When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she
began to look with hatred on all around her. She had long
shared in the universal veneration for Father Madeleine; never-
theless, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he who had
turned her away, and that he was the cause of her misfortunes,
she came to hate him also, and especially. When she passed
the factory at the hours in which the labourers were at the
door, she forced herself to laugh and sing.

An old working - woman who saw her once singing and

176

Lcs Miserables

laughing in this way, said: " There is a girl who will come to a
bad end."

She took a lover, the first comer, a man whom she did not
love, through bravado, and with rage in her heart. He was a
wretch, a kind of mendicant musician, a lazy ragamuffin, who
beat her, and who left her, as she had taken him, with disgust.

She worshipped her child.

The lower she sank, the more all became gloomy around her,
the more the sweet little angel shone out in the bottom of her
heart. She would say: "When I am rich, I shall have my
Cosette with me; " and she laughed. The cough did not leave
her, and she had night sweats.

One day she received from the Thenardiers a letter in these
words: " Cosette is sick of an epidemic disease. A miliary
fever they call it. The drugs necessary are dear. It is ruining
us, and we can no longer pay for them. Unless you send us
forty francs within a week the little one will die."

She burst out laughing, and said to her old neighbour:
"Oh! they are nice! forty francs! think of that! that is two
Napoleons! Where do they think I can get them? Are they
fools, these boors? "

She went, however, to the staircase, near a dormer window,
and read the letter again.

Then she went down stairs and out of doors, running and
jumping, still laughing.

Somebody who met her said to her: " What is the matter
with you, that you are so gay? "

She answered: "A stupid joke that some country people
have just written me. They ask me for forty francs; the
boors!"

As she passed through the square, she saw many people
gathered about an odd-looking carriage on the top of which
stood a man in red clothes, declaiming. He was a juggler and
a travelling dentist, and was offering to the public complete
sets of teeth, opiates, powders, and elixirs.

Fantine joined the crowd and began to laugh with the rest
at this harangue, in which were mingled slang for the rabble
and jargon for the better sort. The puller of teeth saw this
beautiful girl laughing, and suddenly called out: " You have
pretty teeth, you girl who are laughing there. If you will sell
me your two incisors, I will give you a gold Napoleon for each
of them."

" What is that? What are my incisors? " asked Fantine.

Fantine 1 77

" The incisors," resumed the professor of dentistry, " are the
front teeth, the two upper ones."

" How horrible ! " cried Fantine.

" Two Napoleons ! " grumbled a toothless old hag who stood
by. " How lucky she is !"

Fantine fled away and stopped her ears not to hear the shrill
voice of the man who called after her: " Consider, my beauty!
two Napoleons! how much good they will do you! If you
have the courage for it, come this evening to the inn of the
Tillac d' Argent ; you will find me there."

Fantine returned home; she was raving, and told the story
to her good neighbour Marguerite: " Do you understand that?
isn't he an abominable man? Why do they let such people go
about the country? Pull out my two front teeth! why, I
should be horrible! The hair is bad enough, but the teeth!
Oh ! what a monster of a man ! I would rather throw myself
from the fifth story, head first, to the pavement! He told me
that he would be this evening at the Tillac d' Argent.

" And what was it he offered you? " asked Marguerite.

" Two Napoleons."

" That is forty francs."

" Yes," said Fantine, " that makes forty francs."

She became thoughtful and went about her work. In a
quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to the stairs to
read again the Thenardiers' letter.

On her return she said to Marguerite, who was at work
near her :

" What does this mean, a miliary fever? Do you know? "

" Yes," answered the old woman, " it is a disease."

" Then it needs a good many drugs? "

" Yes; terrible drugs."

" How does it come upon you? "

" It is a disease that comes in a moment."

" Does it attack children? "

" Children especially."

" Do people die of it? "

" Very often," said Marguerite.

Fantine withdrew and went once more to read over the letter
on the stairs.

In the evening she went out, and took the direction of the
Rue de Paris where the inns are.

The next morning, when Marguerite went into Fantine's
chamber before daybreak, for they always worked together,

Les Miserables

and so made one candle do for the two, she found Fantine
seated upon her couch, pale and icy. She had not been in bed.
Her cap had fallen upon her knees. The candle had burned all
night, and was almost consumed.

Marguerite stopped upon the threshold, petrified by this wild
disorder, and exclaimed : " Good Lord ! the candle is all burned
out. Something has happened."

Then she looked at Fantine, who sadly turned her shorn head.
Fantine had grown ten years older since evening.
" Bless us ! " said Marguerite, " what is the matter with you,
Fantine?"

" Nothing," said Fantine. " Quite the contrary. My child
will not die with that frightful sickness for lack of aid. I am
satisfied."

So saying, she showed the old woman two Napoleons that
glistened on the table.

"Oh! good God!" said Marguerite. "Why there is a
fortune! where did you get these louis d'or? "
" I got them," answered Fantine.

At the same time she smiled. The candle lit up her face.
It was a sickening smile, for the corners of her mouth were
stained with blood, and a dark cavity revealed itself there.
The two teeth were gone.
She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil.
And this was a ruse of the Thenardiers to get money. Cosette
was not sick.

Fantine threw her looking-glass out of the window. Long
before she had left her little room on the second story for an
attic room with no other fastening than a latch; one of those
garret rooms the ceiling of which makes an angle with the floor
and hits your head at every moment. The poor cannot go to
the end of their chamber or to the end of their destiny, but by
bending continually more and more. She no longer had a bed,
she retained a rag that she called her coverlid, a mattress on
the floor, and a worn-out straw chair. Her little rose-bush was
dried up in the corner, forgotten. In the other corner was a
butter-pot for water, which froze in the winter, and the different
levels at which the water had stood remained marked a long
time by circles of ice. She had lost her modesty, she was losing
her coquetry. The last sign. She would go out with a dirty
cap. Either from want of time or from indifference she no
longer washed her linen. As fast as the heels of her stockings
wore out she drew them down into her shoes. This was shown

Fantinc 179

by certain perpendicular wrinkles. She mended her old, worn-
out corsets with bits of calico which were torn by the slightest
motion. Her creditors quarrelled with her and gave her no
rest. She met them in the street ; she met them again on her
stairs. She passed whole nights in weeping and thinking. She
had a strange brilliancy in her eyes, and a constant pain in her
shoulder near the top of her left shoulder-blade. She coughed
a great deal. She hated Father Madeleine thoroughly, and
never complained. She sewed seventeen hours a day; but a
prison contractor, who was working prisoners at a loss, suddenly
cut down the price, and this reduced the day's wages of free
labourers to nine sous. Seventeen hours of work, and nine
sous a day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The
second-hand dealer, who had taken back nearly all his furniture,
was constantly saying to her: " When will you pay me, wench?"
Good God ! what did they want her to do ? She felt herself
hunted down, and something of the wild beast began to develop
within her. About the same time, Thenardier wrote to her
that really he had waited with too much generosity, and that
he must have a hundred francs immediately, or else little
Cosette, just convalescing after her severe sickness, would be
turned out of doors into the cold and upon the highway, and
that she would become what she could, and would perish if she
must. " A hundred francs," thought Fantine. " But where is
there a place where one can earn a hundred sous a day? "
" Come ! " said she, " I will sell what is left."
The unfortunate creature became a woman of the town.

CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT

WHAT is this history of Fantine ? It is society buying a slave.

From whom? From misery.

From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from abandonment,
from privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a bit of bread.
Misery makes the offer, society accepts.

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it
does not yet permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared
from European civilisation. This is a mistake. It still exists;
but it weighs now only upon woman, and it is called prostitution.

It weighs upon woman, that is to say, upon grace, upon

180 Les Miserables

feebleness, upon beauty, upon maternity* This is not one of
the least of man's shames.

At the stage of this mournful drama at which we have no\»
arrived, Fantine has nothing left of what she had formerly been*
She has become marble in becoming corrupted. Whoever
touches her feels a chill. She goes her ways, she endures you
and she knows you not; she wears a dishonoured and severe
face. Life and social order have spoken their last word to her.
All that can happen to her has happened. She has endured
all, borne all, experienced all, suffered all, lost all, wept for all.
She is resigned, with that resignation that resembles indifference
as death resembles sleep. She shuns nothing now. She fears
nothing now. Every cloud falls upon her, and all the ocean
sweeps over her ! What matters it to her 1 the sponge is already
drenched.

She believed so at least, but it is a mistake to imagine that
man can exhaust his destiny, or can reach the bottom of
anything whatever.

Alas! what are all these destinies thus driven pell-mell?
whither go they ? why are they so ?

He who knows that, sees all the shadow^

He is alone. His name is God.

THERE is in all small cities, and there was at M sur M

in particular, a set of young men who nibble their fifteen hun-
dred livres of income in the country with the same air with
which their fellows devour two hundred thousand francs a year
at Paris. They are beings of the great neuter species ; geldings,
parasites, nobodies, who have a little land, a little folly, and a
little wit, who would be clowns in a drawing-room, and think
themselves gentlemen in a bar-room, who talk about " my
fields, my woods, my peasants," hiss the actresses at the theatre
to prove that they are persons of taste, quarrel with the officers
of the garrison to show that they are gallant, hunt, smoke,
gape, drink, take snuff, play billiards, stare at passengers getting
out of the coach, live at the caf6, dine at the inn, have a dog
who eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who sets the
dishes upon it, hold fast to a sou, overdo the fashions, admire
tragedy, despise women, wear out their old boots, copy London

Fantine 1 8 1

as reflected from Paris, and Paris as reflected from Pont-a-
Mousson, grow stupid as they grow old, do no work, do no
good, and not much harm.

Monsieur Felix Tholomyes, had he remained in his province
and never seen Paris, would have been such a man.

If they were richer, we should say : they are dandies ; if they
were poorer, we should say: they are vagabonds. They are
simply idlers. Among these idlers there are some that are
bores, some that are bored, some dreamers, and some jokers.

In those days, a dandy was made up of a large collar, a large
cravat, a watch loaded with chains, three waistcoats worn one
over the other, of different colours, the red and the blue within,
a short olive-coloured coat with a fish-tail skirt, a double row
of silver buttons alternating with one another and running up
to the shoulder, and pantaloons of a lighter olive, ornamented
at the two seams with an indefinite, but always odd, number
of ribs, varying from one to eleven, a limit which was never
exceeded. Add to this, Blucher boots with little iron caps on
the heel, a high-crowned and narrow-brimmed hat, hair bushed
out, an enormous cane, and conversation spiced with the puns
of Potier. Above all, spurs and moustaches. In those days,
moustaches meant civilians, and spurs meant pedestrians.

The provincial dandy wore longer spurs and fiercer moustaches.

It was the time of the war of the South American Republics
against the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Hats
with narrow brims were Royalist, and were called Morillos;
the liberals wore hats with wide brims which were called Bolivars.

Eight or ten months after what has been related in the pre-
ceding pages, in the early part of January, 1823, one evening
when it had been snowing, one of these dandies, one of these
idlers, a " well-intentioned " man, for he wore a morillo, very
warmly wrapped in one of those large cloaks which completed
the fashionable costume in cold weather, was amusing himself
with tormenting a creature who was walking back and forth
before the window of the officers' cafe", in a ball-dress, with her
neck and shoulders bare, and flowers upon her head. The
dandy was smoking, for that was decidedly the fashion.

Every time that the woman passed before him, he threw out
at her, with a puff of smoke from his cigar, some remark which
he thought was witty and pleasant, as: " How ugly you are! "
" Are you trying to hide? " " You have lost your teeth ! " etc.,
etc. This gentleman's name was Monsieur Bamatabois. The
woman, a rueful, bedizened spectre, who was walking backwards

1 82 Les Miserables

and forwards upon the snow, did not answer him, did not even
look at him, but continued her walk in silence and with a dismal
regularity that brought her under his sarcasm every five minutes,
like the condemned soldier who at stated periods returns under
the rods. This failure to secure attention doubtless piqued the
loafer, who, taking advantage of the moment when she turned,
came up behind her with a stealthy step and stifling his laughter,
stooped down, seized a handful of snow from the side walk, and
threw it hastily into her back between her naked shoulders.
The girl roared with rage, turned, bounded like a panther, and
rushed upon the man, burying her nails in his face, and using
the most frightful words that ever fell from the off-scouring
of a guard-house. These insults were thrown out in a voice
roughened by brandy, from a hideous mouth which lacked the
two front teeth. It was Fantine.

At the noise which this made, the officers came out of the
cafe, a crowd gathered, and a large circle was formed, laughing,
jeering, and applauding, around this centre of attraction com-
posed of two beings who could hardly be recognised as a man
and a woman, the man defending himself, his hat knocked
off, the woman kicking and striking, her head bare, shrieking,
toothless, and without hair, livid with wrath, and horrible.

Suddenly a tall man advanced quickly from the crowd, seized
the woman by her muddy satin waist, and said: " Follow me ! "

The woman raised her head; her furious voice died out at
once. Her eyes were glassy, from livid she had become pale,
and she shuddered with a shudder of terror. She recognised
Javert.

The dandy profited by this to steal away.

XIII

SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS OF MUNICIPAL POLICE

JAVERT dismissed the bystanders, broke up the circle, and
walked off rapidly towards the Bureau of Police, which is at the
end of the square, dragging the poor creature after him. She
made no resistance, but followed mechanically. Neither spoke
a word. The flock of spectators, in a paroxysm of joy, followed
with their jokes. The deepest misery, an opportunity for
obscenity.

When they reached the Bureau of Police, which was a low
hall warmed by a stove, and guarded by a sentinel, with a

Fantine ^83

grated window looking on the street, Javert opened the door,
entered with Fantine, and closed the door behind him, to the
great disappointment of the curious crowd who stood upon
tiptoe and stretched their necks before the dirty window of the
guard-house, in their endeavours to see. Curiosity is a kind
of glutton. To see is to devour.

On entering Fantine crouched down in a corner motionless
and silent, like a frightened dog.

The sergeant of the guard placed a lighted candle on the
table. Javert sat down, drew from his pocket a sheet of
stamped paper, and began to write.

These women are placed by our laws completely under the
discretion of the police. They do what they will with them,
punish them as they please, and confiscate at will those two sad
things which they call their industry and their liberty. Javert
was impassible; his grave face betrayed no emotion. He was,
however, engaged in serious and earnest consideration. It was
one of those moments in which he exercised without restraint,
but with all the scruples of a strict conscience, his formidable
discretionary power. At this moment he felt that his police-
man's stool was a bench of justice. He was conducting a trial.
He was trying and condemning. He called all the ideas of which
his mind was capable around the grand thing that he was doing.
The more he examined the conduct of this girl, the more he
revolted at it. It was clear that he had seen a crime com-
mitted. He had seen, there in the street, society represented
by a property holder and an elector, insulted and attacked by
a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast. A prostitute
had assaulted a citizen. He, Javert, had seen that himself.
He wrote in silence.

When he had finished, he signed his name, folded the paper,
and handed it to the sergeant of the guard, saying: " Take
three men, and carry this girl to jail." Then turning to Fantine;
" You are in for six months."

The hapless woman shuddered.

"Six months! six months in prison!" cried she. "Six
months to earn seven sous a day! but what will become of
Cosette! my daughter! my daughter! Why, I still owe more
than a hundred francs to the Thenardiers, Monsieur Inspector,
do you know that? "

She dragged herself along on the floor, dirted by the muddy
boots of all these men, without rising, clasping her hands, and
moving rapidly on her knees.

184

Lcs Miserables

" Monsieur Javert," said she, " I beg your pity. I assure
you that I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning,
you would have seen. I swear to you by the good God that I
was not in the wrong. That gentleman, whom I do not know,
threw snow in my back. Have they the right to throw snow
into our backs when we are going along quietly like that without
doing any harm to anybody? That made me wild. I am not
very well, you see ! and then he had already been saying things
to me for some time. ' You are homely ! ' ' You have no
teeth ! ' I know too well that I have lost my teeth. I did not
do anything; I thought: ' He is a gentleman who is amusing
himself.' I was not immodest with him, I did not speak to
him. It was then that he threw the snow at me. Monsieur
Javert, my good Monsieur Inspector! was there no one there
who saw it and can tell you that this is true! I perhaps did
wrong to get angry. You know, at the first moment, we cannot
master ourselves. We are excitable. And then, to have some-
thing so cold thrown into your back when you are not expecting
it. I did wrong to spoil the gentleman's hat. Why has he
gone away? I would ask his pardon. Oh! I would beg his
pardon. Have pity on me now this once, Monsieur Javert.
Stop, you don't know how it is, in the prisons they only earn
seven sous; that is not the fault of the government, but they
earn seven sous, and just think that I have a hundred francs to
pay, or else they will turn away my little one. 0 my God! I
cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile ! 0 my Cosette,

0 my little angel of the good, blessed Virgin, what will she
become, poor famished child! I tell you the Thenardiers are
inn-keepers, boors, they have no consideration. They must
have money. Do not put me in prison ! Do you see, she is a
little one that they will put out on the highway, to do what she
can, in the very heart of winter; you must feel pity for such a
thing, good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she could earn
her living, but she cannot at such an age. I am not a bad
woman at heart. It is not laziness and appetite that have
brought me to this; I have drunk brandy, but it was from
misery. I do not like it, but it stupefies. When I was happier,
one would only have had to look into my wardrobe to see that

1 was not a disorderly woman. I had linen, much linen. Have
pity on me, Monsieur Javert."

She talked thus, bent double, shaken with sobs, blinded by
tears, her neck bare, clenching her hands, coughing with a dry
and short cough, stammering very feebly with an agonised

Fantine 185

voice. Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which trans-
figures the wretched. At that moment Fantine had again
become beautiful. At certain instants she stopped and tenderly
kissed the policeman's coat. She would have softened a heart
of granite; but you cannot soften a heart of wood.

" Come/' said Javert, " I have heard you. Haven't you got
through ? March off at once ! you have your six months ! the
Eternal Father in person could do nothing for you."

At those solemn words, The Eternal Father in -person could do
nothing for you, she understood that her sentence was fixed.
She sank down murmuring:

"Mercy!"

Javert turned his back.

The soldiers seized her by the arms.

A few minutes before a man had entered without being
noticed. He had closed the door, and stood with his back
against it, and heard the despairing supplication of Fantine.

When the soldiers put their hands upon the wretched being,
who would not rise, he stepped forward out of the shadow and
said:

" One moment, if you please! "

Javert raised his eyes and recognised Monsieur Madeleine.
He took off his hat, and bowing with a sort of angry awkwardness :

" Pardon, Monsieur Mayor — "

This word, Monsieur Mayor, had a strange effect upon
Fantine. She sprang to her feet at once like a spectre rising
from the ground, pushed back the soldiers with her arms,
walked straight to Monsieur Madeleine before they could stop
her, and gazing at him fixedly, with a wild look, she exclaimed :

" Ah! it is you then who are Monsieur Mayor! "

Then she burst out laughing and spit in his face.

Monsieur Madeleine wiped his face and said :

" Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty."

Javert felt as though he were on the point of losing his senses.
He experienced, at that moment, blow on blow, and almost
simultaneously, the most violent emotions that he had known
in his life. To see a woman of the town spit in the face of a
mayor was a thing so monstrous that in his most daring sup-
positions he would have thought it sacrilege to believe it possible.
On the other hand, deep down in his thought, he dimly brought
into hideous association what this woman was and what this
mayor might be, and then he perceived with horror something
indescribably simple in this prodigious assault. But when he

i 86 Les Miserables

saw this mayor, this magistrate, wipe his face quietly and say :
set this woman at liberty, he was stupefied with amazement;
thought and speech alike failed him; the sum of possible
astonishment had been overpassed. He remained speechless.

The mayor's words were not less strange a blow to Fantine.
She raised her bare arm and clung to the damper of the stove
as if she were staggered. Meanwhile she looked all around and
began to talk in a low voice, as if speaking to herself:

" At liberty ! they let me go ! I am not to go to prison for
six months! Who was it said that? It is not possible that
anybody said that. I misunderstood. That cannot be this
monster of a mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert,
who told them to set me at liberty? Oh! look now! I will
tell you and you will let me go. This monster of a mayor, this
old whelp of a mayor, he is the cause of all this. Think of it,
Monsieur Javert, he turned me away! on account of a parcel
of beggars who told stories in the workshop. Was not that
horrible ! To turn away a poor girl who does her work honestly.
Since that I could not earn enough, and all the wretchedness
has come. To begin with, there is a change that you gentlemen
of the police ought to make — that is, to stop prison contractors
from wronging poor people. I will tell you how it is; listen.
You earn twelve sous at shirt making, that falls to nine sous,
not enough to live. Then we must do what we can. For me,
I had my little Cosette, and I had to be a bad woman. You
see now that it is this beggar of a mayor who has done all this,
and then, I did stamp on the hat of this gentleman in front of
the officers' cafe. But he, he had spoiled my whole dress with
the snow. We women, we have only one silk dress, for evening.
See, you, I have never meant to do wrong, in truth, Monsieur
Javert, and I see everywhere much worse women than I am
who are much more fortunate. Oh, Monsieur Javert, it is you
who said that they must let me go, is it not? Go and inquire,
speak to my landlord; I pay my rent, and he will surely tell
you that I am honest. Oh dear, I beg your pardon, I have
touched — I did not know it — the damper of the stove, and it
smokes."

Monsieur Madeleine listened with profound attention. While
she was talking, he had fumbled in his waistcoat, had taken out
his purse and opened it. It was empty. He had put it back
into his pocket. He said to Fantine :

" How much did you say that you owed? "

Fantine, who had only looked at Javert, turned towards him:

Famine 187

" Who said anything to you ? "

Then addressing herself to the soldiers:

" Say now, did vou see how I spit in his face? Oh ! you old
scoundrel of a mayor, you come here to frighten me, but I am
not afraid of you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid
of my good Monsieur Javert! "

As she said this she turned again towards the inspector:

" Now, you see, Monsieur Inspector, you must be just. I
know that you are just, Monsieur Inspector; in fact, it is very
simple, a man-jvho jocosely throws a little snow into a woman's
back, that makes them laugh, the officers, they must divert
themselves with something, and we poor things are only for
their amusement. And then, you, you come, you are obliged
to keep order, you arrest the woman who has done wrong, but
on reflection, as you are good, you tell them to set me at liberty,
that is for my little one, because six months in prison, that
would prevent my supporting my child. Only never come back
again, wretch! Oh! I will never come back again, Monsieur
Javert! They may do anything they like with me now, I will
not stir. Only, to-day, you see, I cried out because that hurt
me. I did not in the least expect that snow from that gentle-
man, and then, I have told you, I am not very well, I cough, I
have something in my chest like a ball which burns me, and the
doctor tells me: ' be careful.' Stop, feel, give my your hand,
don't be afraid, here it is."

She wept no more; her voice was caressing; she placed
Javert's great coarse hand upon her white and delicate chest,
and looked at him smiling.

Suddenly she hastily adjusted the disorder of her garments,
smoothed down the folds of her dress, which, in dragging herself
about, had been raised almost as high as her knees, and walked
towards the door, saying in an undertone to the soldiers, with
a friendly nod of the head :

" Boys, Monsieur the Inspector said that you must release
me; I am going."

She put her hand upon the latch. One more step and she
would be in the street.

Javert until that moment had remained standing, motionless,
his eyes fixed on the ground, looking, in the midst of the scene,
like a statue which was waiting to be placed in position.

The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with
an expression of sovereign authority, an expression always the
more frightful in proportion as power is vested in beings of

1 88 Les Miserables

lower grade; ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the
undeveloped man.

" Sergeant," exclaimed he, " don't you see that this vagabond
is going off? Who told you to let her go? "

" I," said Madeleine.

At the words of Javert, Fantine had trembled and dropped
the latch, as a thief who is caught, drops what he has stolen.
When Madeleine spoke, she turned, and from that moment,
without saying a word, without even daring to breathe freely,
she looked by turns from Madeleine to Javert and from Javert
to Madeleine, as the one or the other was speaking.

It was clear that Javert must have been, as they say, " thrown
off his balance," or he would not have allowed himself to
address the sergeant as he did, after the direction of the mayor
to set Fantine at liberty. Had he forgotten the presence of
the mayor ? Had he finally decided within himself that it was
impossible for " an authority " to give such an order, and that
very certainly the mayor must have said one thing when he
meant another? Or, in view of the enormities which he had
witnessed for the last two hours, did he say to himself that it
was necessary to revert to extreme measures, that it was neces-
sary for the little to make itself great, for the detective to
transform himself into a magistrate, for the policeman to
become a judge, and that in this fearful extremity, order, law,
morality, government, society as a whole, were personified in
him, Javert?

However this might be, when Monsieur Madeleine pronounced
that / which we have just heard, the inspector of police, Javert,
turned towards the mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, a desperate
look, his whole body agitated with an imperceptible tremor,
and, an unheard-of thing, said to him, with a downcast look,
but a firm voice :

" Monsieur Mayor, that cannot be done."

" Why? " said Monsieur Madeleine.

" This wretched woman has insulted a citizen."

" Inspector Javert," replied Monsieur Madeleine, in a con«
ciliating and calm tone, " listen. You are an honest man, and
I have no objection to explain myself to you. The truth is
this. I was passing through the square when you arrested this
woman; there was a crowd still there; I learned the circum-
stances; I know all about it; it is the citizen who was in the
wrong, and who, by a faithful police, would have been arrested."

Javert went on:

Fantine 189

" This wretch has just insulted Monsieur the Mayor."

" That concerns me/' said Monsieur Madeleine. " The insult
to me rests with myself, perhaps. I can do what I please
about it."

" I beg Monsieur the Mayor's pardon. The insult rests not
with him, it rests with justice."

" Inspector Javert," replied Monsieur Madeleine, " the
highest justice is conscience. I have heard this woman. I
know what I am doing."

" And for my part, Monsieur Mayor, I do not know what I
am seeing."

" Then content yourself with obeying."

" I obey my duty. My duty requires that this woman spend
six months in prison."

Monsieur Madeleine answered mildly:

" Listen to this. She shall not a day."

At these decisive words, Javert had the boldness to look the
mayor in the eye, and said, but still in a tone of profound
respect :

" I am very sorry to resist Monsieur the Mayor; it is the
first time in my life, but he will deign to permit me to observe
that I am within the limits of my own authority. I will speak,
since the mayor desires it, on the matter of the citizen. I was
there. This girl fell upon Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an
elector and the owner of that fine house with a balcony, that
stands at the corner of the esplanade, three stories high, and all
of hewn stone. Indeed, there are some things in this world
which must be considered. However that may be, Monsieur
Mayor, this matter belongs to the police of the street; that
concerns me, and I detain the woman Fantine."

At this Monsieur Madeleine folded his arms and said in a
severe tone which nobody in the city had ever yet heard :

" The matter of which you speak belongs to the municipal
police. By the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-
six of the code of criminal law, I am the judge of it. I order
that this woman be set at liberty."

Javert endeavoured to make a last attempt^

" But, Monsieur Mayor "

" I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of December 13th,
1799, upon illegal imprisonment."

" Monsieur Mayor, permit "

" Not another word."

" However "

190 Les Miserables

" Retire," said Monsieur Madeleine.

Javert received the blow, standing in front, and with open
breast like a Russian soldier. He bowed to the ground before
the mayor, and went out.

Fantine stood by the door and looked at him with stupor as
he passed before her.

Meanwhile she also was the subject of a strange revolution.
She had seen herself somehow disputed about by two opposing
powers. She had seen struggling before her very eyes two men
who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, her child;
one of these men was drawing her to the side of darkness, the
other was leading her towards the light. In this contest, seen
with distortion through the magnifying power of fright, these
two men had appeared to her like two giants ; one spoke as her
demon, the other as her good angel. The angel had vanquished
the demon, and the thought of it made her shudder from head
to foot; this angel, this deliverer, was precisely the man whom
she abhorred, this mayor whom she had so long considered as
the author of all her woes, this Madeleine! and at the very
moment when she had insulted him in a hideous fashion, he
had saved her ! Had she then been deceived ? Ought she then
to change her whole heart? She did not know, she trembled.
She listened with dismay, she looked around with alarm, and
at each word that Monsieur Madeleine uttered, she felt the
fearful darkness of her hatred melt within and flow away, while
there was born in her heart an indescribable and unspeakable
warmth of joy, of confidence, and of love.

When Javert was gone, Monsieur Madeleine turned towards
her, and said to her, speaking slowly and with difficulty, like a
man who is struggling that he may not weep:

" I have heard you. I knew nothing of what you have said.
I believe that it is true. I did not even know that you had
left my workshop. Why did you not apply to me? But now:
I will pay your debts, I will have your child come to you, or
you shall go to her. You shall live here, at Paris, or where you
will. I take charge of your child and you. You shall do no
more work, if you do not wish to. I will give you all the money
that you need. You shall again become honest in again becom-
ing happy. More than that, listen. I declare to you from this
moment, if all is as you say, and I do not doubt it, that you
have never ceased to be virtuous and holy before God. Oh,
poor woman ! "

This was more than poor Fantine could bear. To have

Fantine

191

Cosette! to leave this infamous life! to live free, rich, happy,
honest, with Cosette! to see suddenly spring up in the midst
of her misery all these realities of paradise ! She looked as if
she were stupefied at the man who was speaking to her, and
could only pour out two or three sobs : "Oh! oh! oh!" Her
limbs gave way, she threw herself on her knees before Monsieur
Madeleine, and, before he could prevent it, he felt that she had
seized his hand and carried it to her lips.
Then she fainted.

BOOK SIXTH— JAVERT

MONSIEUR MADELEINE had Fantine taken to the infirmary,
which was in his own house. He confided her to the sisters,
who put her to bed. A violent fever came on, and she passed
a part of the night in delirious ravings. Finally, she fell asleep.

Towards noon the following day, Fantine awoke. She heard
a breathing near her bed, drew aside the curtain, and saw
Monsieur Madeleine standing gazing at something above his
head. His look was full of compassionate and supplicating
agony. She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed
upon a'crucifix nailed against the wall.

From that moment Monsieur Madeleine was transfigured in
the eyes of Fantine; he seemed to her clothed upon with light.
He was absorbed in a kind of prayer. She gazed at him for a
long while without daring to interrupt him; at last she said
timidly :

" What are you doing ? "

Monsieur Madeleine had been in that place for an hour waiting
for Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and
said:

" How do you feel? "

" Very well. I have slept," she said. " I think I am getting
better — this will be nothing."

Then he said, answering the question she had first asked him,
as if she had just asked it:

" I was praying to the martyr who is on high."

And in his thought he added: " For the martyr who is here
below."

Monsieur Madeleine had passed the night and morning in
informing himself about Fantine. He knew all now, he had
learned, even in all its poignant details, the history of Fantine.

He went on:

" You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh ! do not
192

Fantine 193

lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way
that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not
know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you
have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin
by that."

He sighed deeply; but she smiled with this sublime smile
from which two teeth were gone.

That same night, Javert wrote a letter. Next morning he

carried this letter himself to the post-office of M sur M .

It was directed to Paris and bore this address: " To Monsieur
Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur the Prefect of Police."

As the affair of the Bureau of Police had been noised about,
the postmistress and some others who saw the letter before it
was sent, and who recognised Javert's handwriting in the
address, thought he was sending in his resignation. Monsieur
Madeleine wrote immediately to the Thenardiers. Fantine
owed them a hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three
hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves out of it, and

bring the child at once to M sur M , where her mother,

who was sick, wanted her.

This astonished Thenardier.

" The Devil ! " he said to his wife, " we won't let go of the
child. It may be that this lark will become a milch cow. I
guess some silly fellow had been smitten by the mother."

He replied by a bill of five hundred and some odd francs care-
fully drawn up. In this bill figured two incontestable items for
upwards of three hundred francs, one of a physician and the
other of an apothecary who had attended and supplied Eponine
and Azelma during two long illnesses. Cosette, as we have said,
had not been ill. This was only a slight substitution of names.
Thenardier wrote at the bottom of the bill: "Received on
account three hundred francs."

Monsieur Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs
more, and wrote: " Make haste to bring Cosette."

" Christy 1 " said Thenardier, " we won't let go of the girl."

Meanwhile Fantine had not recovered. She still remained
in the infirmary.

It was not without some repugnance, at first, that the sisters
received and cared for " this girl." He who has seen the bas-
reliefs at Rheims will recall the distension of the lower lip of the
wise virgins beholding the foolish virgins. This ancient con-
tempt of vestals for less fortunate women is one of the deepest
instincts of womanly dignity; the sisters had experienced it

I G

194 Les Miserables

with the intensification of Religion. But in a few days Fantine
had disarmed them. The motherly tenderness within her, with
her soft and touching words, moved them. One day the sisters
heard her say in her delirium: " I have been a sinner, but when
I shall have my child with me, that will mean that God has
pardoned me. While I was bad I would not have had my
Cosette with me; I could not have borne her sad and surprised
looks. It was for her I sinned, and that is why God forgives
me. I shall feel this benediction when Cosette comes. I shall
gaze upon her; the sight of her innocence will do me good. She
knows nothing of it all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters.
At her age the wings have not yet fallen."

Monsieur Madeleine came to see her twice a day, and at each
visit she asked him:

" Shall I see my Cosette soon? "

He answered :

" Perhaps to-morrow. I expect her every moment."

And the mother's pale face would brighten.

" Ah ! " she would say, " how happy I shall be."

We have just said she did not recover: on the contrary, her
condition seemed to become worse from week to week. That
handful of snow applied to the naked skin between her shoulder-
blades, had caused a sudden check of perspiration, in conse-
quence of which the disease, which had been forming for some
years, at last attacked her violently. They were just at that
time beginning in the diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases
to follow the fine theory of Laennec. The doctor sounded her
lungs and shook his head.

Monsieur Madeleine said to him :

" Well? "

" Has she not a child she is anxious to see? " said the doctor.

" Yes."

" Well then, make haste to bring her."

Monsieur Madeleine gave a shudder.

Fantine asked him: " What did the doctor say? "

Monsieur Madeleine tried to smile.

" He told us to bring your child at once. That will restore
your health."

" Oh! " she cried, " he is right. But what is the matter with
these Thenardiers that they keep my Cosette from me? Oh!
She is coming! Here at last I see happiness near me."

The Thenardiers, however, did not " let go of the child; "
they gave a hundred bad reasons. Cosette was too delicate to

Fantine 195

travel in the winter time, and then there were a number of little
petty debts, of which they were collecting the bills, etc., etc.

" I will send somebody for Cosette," said Monsieur Madeleine,
" if necessary, I will go myself."

He wrote at Fantine's dictation this letter, which she signed.

" Monsieur Thenardier:

" You will deliver Cosette to the bearer.

" He will settle all small debts.

" I have the honour to salute you with consideration.

" FANTINE."

In the meanwhile a serious matter intervened. In vain we
chisel, as best we can, the mysterious block of which our life is
made, the black vein of destiny reappears continually.

HOW JEAN CAN BECOME CHAMP

ONE morning Monsieur Madeleine was in his office arranging for
some pressing business of the mayoralty, in case he should decide
to go to Montfermeil himself, when he was informed that Javert,
the inspector of police, wished to speak with him. On hearing
this name spoken, Monsieur Madeleine could not repress a dis-
agreeable impression. Since the affair of the Bureau of Police,
Javert had more than ever avoided him, and Monsieur Made-
leine had not seen him at all.

" Let him come in," said he.

Javert entered.

Monsieur Madeleine remained seated near the fire, looking
over a bundle of papers upon which he was making notes, and
which contained the returns of the police patrol. He did not
disturb himself at all for Javert: he could not but think of poor
Fantine, and it was fitting that he should receive him very
coldly.

Javert respectfully saluted the mayor, who had his back
towards him. The mayor did not look up, but continued to
make notes on the papers.

Javert advanced a few steps, and paused without breaking
silence.

A physiognomist, had he been familiar with Javert's face,
had he made a study for years of this savage in the service of
civilisation, this odd mixture of the Roman, Spartan, monk,

196

Les Miserables

and corporal, this spy, incapable of a lie, this virgin detective —
a physiognomist, had he known his secret and inveterate aver-
sion for Monsieur Madeleine, his contest with the mayor on the
subject of Fan tine, and had he seen Javert at that moment,
would have said: " What has happened to him? "

It was evident to any one who had known this conscientious,
straight-forward, clear, sincere, upright, austere, fierce man,
that Javert had suffered some great interior commotion.
There was nothing in his mind that was not depicted on his face.
He was, like all violent people, subject to sudden changes.
Never had his face been stranger or more startling. On enter-
ing, he had bowed before Monsieur Madeleine with a look in
which was neither rancour, anger, nor defiance; he paused
some steps behind the mayor's chair, and was now standing in a
soldierly attitude with the natural, cold rudeness of a man who
was never kind, but has always been patient; he waited with-
out speaking a word or making a motion, in genuine humility
and tranquil resignation, until it should please Monsieur the
Mayor to turn towards him, calm, serious, hat in hand, and eyes
cast down with an expression between that of a soldier before
his officer and a prisoner before his judge. All the feeling as well
as all the remembrances which we should have expected him
to have, disappeared. Nothing was left upon this face, simple
and impenetrable as granite, except a gloomy sadness. His
whole person expressed abasement and firmness, an indescrib-
ably courageous dejection.

At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned partly round :

" Well, what is it? What is the matter, Javert? "

Javert remained silent a moment as if collecting himself;
then raised his voice with a sad solemnity which did not, how-
ever, exclude simplicity : " There has been a criminal act com-
mitted, Monsieur Mayor."

"What act?"

" An inferior agent of the government has been wanting in
respect to a magistrate, in the gravest manner. I come, as is
my duty, to bring the fact to your knowledge."

Who is this agent? " asked Monsieur Madeleine.

I," said Javert.

You?"

I."

' And who is the magistrate who has to complain of this
agent? "

" You, Monsieur Mayor."

Fantine 197

Monsieur Madeleine straightened himself in his chair. Javert
continued, with serious looks and eyes still cast down.

" Monsieur Mayor, I come to ask you to be so kind as to make
charges and procure my dismissal."

Monsieur Madeleine, amazed, opened his mouth. Javert
interrupted him :

" You will say that I might tender my resignation, but that
b not enough. To resign is honourable; I have done wrong.
I ought to be punished. I must be dismissed."

And after a pause he added:

" Monsieur Mayor, you were severe to me the other day,
unjustly. Be justly so to-day."

" Ah, indeed ! why? What is all this nonsense? What does
it all mean? What is the criminal act committed by you
against me? What have you done to me? How have you
wronged me? You accuse yourself: do you wish to be
relieved ? "

" Dismissed," said Javert.

" Dismissed it is then. It is very strange^ I do not under-
stand you."

" You will understand, Monsieur Mayor," Javert sighed
deeply, and continued sadly and coldly:

" Monsieur Mayor, six weeks ago, after that scene about that
girl, I was enraged and I denounced you."

" Denounced me? "

" To the Prefecture of Police at Paris."

Monsieur Madeleine, who did not laugh much oftener than
Javert, began to laugh :

" As a mayor having encroached upon the police ? "

" As a former convict."

The mayor became livid.

Javert, who had not raised his eyes, continued :

" I believed it. For a long while I had had suspicions. A
resemblance, information you obtained at Faverolles, your
immense strength; the affair of old Fauchelevent; your skill
as a marksman; your leg which drags a little — and in fact I
don't know what other stupidities; but at last I took you for
a man named Jean Valjean."

" Named what? How did you call that name? "

" Jean Valjean. He was a convict I saw twenty years ago,
when I was adjutant of the galley guard at Toulon. After
leaving the galleys this Valjean, it appears, robbed a bishop's
palace, then he committed another robbery with weapons in-

198 Les Miserables

his hands, in a highway, on a little Savoyard. For eight years
his whereabouts have been unknown, and search has been made
for him. I fancied — in short, I have done this thing. Anger
determined me, and I denounced you to the prefect."

M. Madeleine, who had taken up the file of papers agan, a
few moments before, said with a tone of perfect indifference:
" And what answer did you get? "

' That I was crazy."

'Well!"

' Well; they were right."

1 It is fortunate that you think so ! "

' It must be so, for the real Jean Valjean has been found."

The paper that M. Madeleine held fell from his hand; he
raised his head, looked steadily at Javert, and said in an in-
expressible tone:

"Ah!"

Javert continued:

" I will tell you how it is, Monsieur Mayor. There was, it
appears, in the country, near Ailly-le-Haut Clocher, a simple sort
of fellow who was called Father Champmathieu. He was very
poor. Nobody paid any attention to him. Such folks live, one
hardly knows how. Finally, this last fall, Father Champ-
mathieu was arrested for stealing cider apples from , but

that is of no consequence. There was a theft, a wall scaled,
branches of trees broken. Our Champmathieu was arrested;
he had even then a branch of an apple-tree in his hand. The
rogue was caged. So far, it was nothing more than a peniten-
tiary matter. But here comes in the hand of Providence. The
jail being in a bad condition, the police justice thought it best
to take him to Arras, where the prison of the department is.
In this prison at Arras there was a former convict named
Brevet, who is there for some trifle, and who, for his good
conduct, has been made turnkey. No sooner was Champ-
mathieu set down, than Brevet cried out : ' Ha, ha ! I know
that man. He is a fagot.' l

" ' Look up here, my good man. You are Jean Valjean.'
* Jean Valjean, who is Jean Valjean? ' Champmathieu plays off
the astonished. ' Don't play ignorance,' said Brevet. ' You
are Jean Valjean; you were in the galleys at Toulon. It is
twenty years ago. We were there together.' Champmathieu
denied it all. Faith 1 you understand; they fathomed it. The
case was worked up and this was what they found. This
1 Former convict.

Fantine 199

Champmathieu thirty years ago was a pruner in divers places,
particularly in Faverolles. There we lose trace of him. A long
time afterwards we find him at Auvergne ; then at Paris, where
he is said to have been a wheelwright and to have had a daughter
— a washerwoman, but that is not proven, and finally in this
part of the country. Now before going to the galleys for
burglary, what was Jean Valjean? A pruner. Where? At
Faverolles. Another fact. This Valjean's baptismal name was
Jean ; his mother's family name, Mathieu. Nothing could be
more natural, on leaving the galleys, than to take his mother's
name to disguise himself; then he would be called Jean Mathieu.
He goes to Auvergne, the pronunciation of that region would
make Chan of Jean — they would call him Chan Mathieu. Our
man adopts it, and now you have him transformed into Champ-
mathieu. You follow me, do you not? Search has been made
at Faverolles; the family of Jean Valjean are no longer there.
Nobody knows where they are. You know in such classes
these disappearances of families often occur. You search, but
can find nothing. Such people, when they are not mud, are dust.
And then as the commencement of this story dates back thirty
years, there is nobody now at Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean.
But search has been made at Toulon. Besides Brevet there
are only two convicts who have seen Jean Valjean. They are
convicts for life; their names are Cochepaille and Chenildieu.
These men were brought from the galleys and confronted with
the pretended Champmathieu. They did not hesitate. To
them as well as to Brevet it was Jean Valjean. Same age;
fifty-four years old; same height; same appearance, in fact
the same man; it is he. At this time it was that I sent my
denunciation to the Prefecture at Paris. They replied that I
was out of my mind, and that Jean Valjean was at Arras in the
hands of justice. You may imagine how that astonished me;
I who believed that I had here the same Jean Valjean. I wrote
to the justice; he sent for me and brought Champmathieu
before me."

" Well," interrupted Monsieur Madeleine.

Javert replied, with an incorruptible and sad face:

" Monsieur Mayor, truth is truth. I am sorry for it, but that
man is Jean Valjean. I recognised him also."

Monsieur Madeleine said in a very low voice:

" Are you sure? "

Javert began to laugh with the suppressed laugh which
indicates profound conviction.

2 co Les Miserables

"H'm, sure!"

He remained a moment in thought, mechanically taking up
pinches of the powdered wood used to dry ink, from the box on
the table, and then added :

" And now that I see the real Jean Valjean, I do not under-
stand how I ever could have believed anything else. I beg
your pardon, Monsieur Mayor."

In uttering these serious and supplicating words to him, who
six weeks before had humiliated him before the entire guard,
and had said " Retire! " Javert, this haughty man, was uncon-
sciously full of simplicity and dignity. Monsieur Madeleine
answered his request, by this abrupt question:

" And what did the man say ? "

" Oh, bless me ! Monsieur Mayor, the affair is a bad one. If
it is Jean Valjean, it is a second offence. To climb a wall, break
a branch, and take apples, for a child is only a trespass; for a
man it is a misdemeanour; for a convict it is a crime. Scaling
a wall and theft includes everything. It is not a case for a
police court, but for the assizes. It is not a few days' imprison-
ment, but the galleys for life. And then there is the affair of
the little Savoyard, who I hope will be found. The devil 1
There is something to struggle against, is there not? There
would be for anybody but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a
sly fellow. And that is just where I recognise him. Anybody
else would know that he was in a hot place, and would rave and
cry out, as the tea-kettle sings on the fire; he would say that
he was not Jean Valjean, et cetera. But this man pretends not
to understand, he says : ' I am Champmathieu : I have no
more to say.' He puts on an appearance of astonishment; he
plays the brute. Oh, the rascal is cunning! But it is all the
same, there is the evidence. Four persons have recognised him,
and the old villain will be condemned. It has been taken to
the assizes at Arras. I am going to testify. I have been
summoned."

Monsieur Madeleine had turned again to his desk, and was
quietly looking over his papers, reading and writing alternately,
like a man pressed with business. He turned again towards
Javert :

" That will do, Javert. Indeed all these details interest me
very little. We are wasting time, and we have urgent business,
Javert; go at once to the house of the good woman Buseaupied,
who sells herbs at the corner of Rue Saint Saulve; tell her to
make her complaint against the carman Pierre Chesnelong.

Fan tine 201

He is a brutal fellow, he almost crushed this woman and her
child. He must be punished. Then you will go to Monsieur
Charcellay, Rue Montre-de-Champigny. He complains that
the gutter of the next house when it rains throws water upon
his house, and is undermining the foundation. Then you will
inquire into the offences that have been reported to me, at the
widow Doris's, Rue Guibourg, and Madame Ren6e le Bosse's,
Rue du Garraud Blanc, and make out reports. But I am
giving you too much to do. Did you not tell me you were going
to Arras in eight or ten days on this matter? "

" Sooner than that, Monsieur Mayor."

" What day then? "

" I think I told monsieur that the case would be tried to-
morrow, and that I should leave by the diligence to-night."

Monsieur Madeleine made an imperceptible motion.

" And how long will the matter last? "

" One day at longest. Sentence will be pronounced at latest
to-morrow evening. But I shall not wait for the sentence,
which is certain ; as soon as my testimony is given I shall return
here."

" Very well," said Monsieur Madeleine.

And he dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

Javert did not go.

" Your pardon, monsieur," said he.

" What more is there? " asked Monsieur Madeleine.

" Monsieur Mayor, there is one thing more to which I desire
to call your attention."

" What is it? "

" It is that I ought to be dismissed."

Monsieur Madeleine arose.

" Javert, you are a man of honour and I esteem you. You
exaggerate your fault. Besides, this is an offence which con-
cerns me. You are worthy of promotion rather than disgrace.
I desire you to keep your place."

Javert looked at Monsieur Madeleine with his calm eyes,
in whose depths it seemed that one beheld his conscience,
unenlightened, but stern and pure, and said in a tranquil
voice :

" Monsieur Mayor, I cannot agree to that."

" I repeat," said Monsieur Madeleine, " that this matter
concerns me."

But Javert, with his one idea, continued :

" As to exaggerating, I do not exaggerate. This is the way

202 Les Miserables

I reason. I have unjustly suspected you. That is nothing.
It is our province to suspect, although it may be an abuse of
our right to suspect our superiors. But without proofs and in a
fit of anger, with revenge as my aim, I denounced you as a
convict — you, a respectable man, a mayor, and a magistrate.
This is a serious matter, very serious. I have committed an
offence against authority in your person, I who am the agent
of authority. If one of my subordinates had done what I have,
I would have pronounced him unworthy of the service, and sent
him away. Well, listen a moment, Monsieur Mayor; I have
often been severe in my life towards others. It was just. I
did right. Now if I were not severe towards myself, all
I have justly done would become injustice. Should I spare
myself more than others? No. What! if I should be prompt
only to punish others and not myself, I should be a wretch
indeed ! They who say : ' That blackguard, Javert,' would be
right. Monsieur Mayor, I do not wish you to treat me with
kindness. Your kindness, when it was for others, enraged me;
I do not wish it for myself. That kindness which consists in
defending a woman of the town against a citizen, a police agent
against the mayor, the inferior against the superior, that is
what I call ill-judged kindness. Such kindness disorganises
society. Good God, it is easy to be kind, the difficulty is to be
just. Had you been what I thought, I should not have been
kind to you; not I. You would have seen, Monsieur Mayor. I
ought to treat myself as I would treat anybody else. When I
put down malefactors, when I rigorously brought up offenders,
I often said to myself: ' You, if you ever trip; if ever I catch
you doing wrong, look out ! ' I have tripped, I have caught
myself doing wrong. So much the worse! I must be sent
away, broken, dismissed, that is right. I have hands: I can
till the ground. It is all the same to me. Monsieur Mayor,
the good of the service demands an example. I simply ask the
dismissal of Inspector Javert."

All this was said in a tone of proud humility, a desperate and
resolute tone, which gave an indescribably whimsical grandeur
to this oddly honest man.

" We will see," said Monsieur Madeleine.

And he held out his hand to him.

Javert started back, and said fiercely:

" Pardon, Monsieur Mayor, that should not be. A mayor
does not give his hand to a spy."

He added between his teeth:

Fantinc 203

" Spy, yes; from the moment I abused the power of my
position, I have been nothing better than a spy I "

Then he bowed profoundly, and went towards the door.

There he turned around: his eyes yet downcast.

" Monsieur Mayor, I will continue in the service until I am
relieved."

He went out. Monsieur Madeleine sat musing, listening to
his firm and resolute step as it died away along the corridor.

BOOK SEVENTH
THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR

I
SISTER SIMPLICE

THE events which follow were never all known at M sur

M . But the few which did leak out have left such memories

in that city, that it would be a serious omission in this book if
we did not relate them in their minutest details.

Among these details, the reader will meet with two or three
improbable circumstances, which we preserve from respect for
the truth.

In the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine
went to see Fantine as usual.

Before going to Fantine's room, he sent for Sister Simplice.

The two nuns who attended the infirmary, Lazarists as all
these Sisters of Charity are, were called Sister Perpetue and
Sister Simplice.

Sister Perp6tue was an ordinary village-girl, summarily
become a Sister of Charity, who entered the service of God as
she would have entered service anywhere. She was a nun as
others are cooks. This type is not very rare. The monastic
orders gladly accept this heavy peasant clay, easily shaped into
a Capuchine or an Ursuline. Such rustics are useful for the
coarser duties of devotion. There is no shock in the transition
from a cowboy to a Carmelite; the one becomes the other with-
out much labour; the common basis of ignorance of a village
and a cloister is a ready-made preparation, and puts the rustic
at once upon an even footing with the monk. Enlarge the smock
a little and you have a frock. Sister Perpdtue was a stout nun,
from Marines, near Pontoise, given to patois, psalm-singing
and muttering, sugaring a nostrum according to the bigotry
or hypocrisy of the patient, treating invalids harshly, rough
with the dying, almost throwing them into the face of God,
belabouring the death agony with angry prayers, bold, honest,
and florid.

204

Fantine 205

Sister Simplice was white with a waxen clearness. In com-
parison with Sister Perpetue she was a sacramental taper by the
side of a tallow candle. St. Vincent de Paul has divinely drawn
the figure of a Sister of Charity in these admirable words in
which he unites so much liberty with so much servitude. " Her
only convent shall be the house of sickness; her only cell, a
hired lodging; her chapel the parish church; her cloister the
streets of the city, or the wards of the hospital; her only wall
obedience; her grate the fear of God ; her veil modesty." This
ideal was made alive in Sister Simplice. No one could have told
Sister Simplice's age; she had never been young, and seemed
as if she never should be old. She was a person — we dare not
say a woman — gentle, austere, companionable, cold, and who
had never told a lie. She was so gentle that she appeared fragile ;
but on the contrary she was more enduring than granite. She
touched the unfortunate with charming fingers, delicate and
pure. There was, so to say, silence in her speech; she said just
what was necessary, and she had a tone of voice which would
at the same time have edified a confessional, and enchanted a
drawing-room. This delicacy accommodated itself to the serge
dress, finding in its harsh touch a continual reminder of Heaven
and of God. Let us dwell upon one circumstance. Never to
have lied, never to have spoken, for any purpose whatever, even
carelessly, a single word which was not the truth, the sacred
truth, was the distinctive trait of Sister Simplice; it was the
mark of her virtue. She was almost celebrated in the congrega-
tion for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbe Sicard speaks
of Sister Simplice in a letter to the deaf mute, Massieu. Sincere
and pure as we may be, we all have the mark of some little lie
upon our truthfulness. She had none. A little lie, an innocent
lie, can such a thing exist? To lie is the absolute of evil. To
lie a little is not possible ; he who lies, lies a whole lie ; lying is
the very face of the demon. Satan has two names; he is called
Satan, and he is called the Liar. Such were her thoughts. And
as she thought, she practised. From this resulted that white-
ness of which we have spoken, a whiteness that covered with its
radiance even her lips and her eyes. Her smile was white, her
look was white. There was not a spider's web, not a speck of
dust upon the glass of that conscience. When she took the vows
of St. Vincent de Paul, she had taken the name of Simplice by
especial choice. Simplice of Sicily, it is well known, is that
saint who preferred to have both her breasts torn out rather
than answer, having been born at Syracuse, that she was born

206 Les Miserables

at Segesta, a lie which would have saved her. This patron saint
was fitting for this soul.

Sister Simplice, on entering the order, had two faults of which
she corrected herself gradually; she had had a taste for deli-
cacies, and loved to receive letters. Now she read nothing but
a prayer-book in large type and in Latin. She did not under-
stand Latin, but she understood the book.

The pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine,
perceiving in her probably some latent virtue, and had devoted
herself almost exclusively to her care.

Monsieur Madeleine took Sister Simplice aside and recom-
mended Fantine to her with a singular emphasis, which the
sister remembered at a later day.

On leaving the Sister, he approached Fantine.

Fantine awaited each day the appearance of Monsieur Made-
leine as one awaits a ray of warmth and of joy. She would say
to the sisters: " I live only when the Mayor is here."

That day she had more fever. As soon as she saw Monsieur
Madeleine, she asked him:

" Cosette? "

He answered with a smile :

" Very soon."

Monsieur Madeleine, while with Fantine, seemed the same as
usual. Only he stayed an hour instead of half an hour, to the
great satisfaction of Fantine. He made a thousand charges to
everybody that the sick woman might want for nothing. It
was noticed that at one moment his countenance became very
sombre. But this was explained when it was known that the
doctor had, bending close to his ear, said to him: "She is
sinking fast."

Then he returned to the mayor's office, and the office boy
saw him examine attentively a road-map of France which hung
in his room. He made a few figures in pencil upon a piece of
paper.

SHREWDNESS OF MASTER SCAUFFLAIRE

FROM the mayor's office he went to the outskirts of the city, to
a Fleming's, Master Scaufflaer, Frenchified into Scaufflaire, who
kept horses to let and " chaises if desired."

In order to go to Scaufflaire 's, the nearest way was by a rarely
frequented street, on which was the parsonage of the parish in

Fantine 207

which Monsieur Madeleine lived. The cure was, it was said, a
worthy and respectable man, and a good counsellor. At the
moment when Monsieur Madeleine arrived in front of the
parsonage, there was but one person passing in the street, and
he remarked this : the mayor, after passing by the cure's house,
stopped, stood still a moment, then turned back and retraced
his steps as far as the door of the parsonage, which was a large
door with an iron knocker. He seized the knocker quickly and
raised it; then he stopped anew, stood a short time as if in
thought, and after a few seconds, instead of letting the knocker
fall smartly, he replaced it gently, and resumed his walk with
a sort of haste that he had not shown before.

Monsieur Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home busy
repairing a harness.

' Master Scaufflaire," he asked, " have you a good horse? "

' Monsieur Mayor," said the Fleming, " all my horses are
good. What do you understand by a good horse ? "

' I understand a horse that can go twenty leagues in a day."

' The devil! " said the Fleming, " twenty leagues! "

' Yes."

' Before a chaise ? "

' Yes."

' And how long will he rest after the journey? "

' He must be able to start again the next day in case of need."

' To do the same thing again ? "

' Yes."

' The devil ! and it is twenty leagues ? "

Monsieur Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which
he had pencilled the figures. He showed them to the Fleming.
They were the figures, 5, 6, 8£.

" You see," said he. " Total, nineteen and a half, that is to
say, twenty leagues."

" Monsieur Mayor," resumed the Fleming, " I have just what
you want. My little white horse, you must have seen him
sometimes passing; he is a little beast from Bas-Boulonnais.
He is full of fire. They tried at first to make a saddle horse of
him. Bah ! he kicked, he threw everybody off. They thought
he was vicious, they didn't know what to do. I bought him. I
put him before a chaise; Monsieur, that is what he wanted;
he is as gentle as a girl, he goes like the wind. But, for example,
it won't do to get on his back. It's not his idea to be a saddle
horse. Everybody has his peculiar ambition. To draw, but
not to carry: we must believe that he has said that to himself."

aoS Les Miserables

" And he will make the trip ? "

" Your twenty leagues, all the way at a full trot, and in less
than eight hours. But there are some conditions."

" Name them."

" First, you must let him breathe an hour when you are half
way; he will eat, and somebody must be by while he eats to
prevent the tavern boy from stealing his oats; for I have
noticed that at taverns, oats are oftener drunk by the stable
boys than eaten by the horses."

" Somebody shall be there."

" Secondly — is the chaise for Monsieur the Mayor? "

11 Yes."

" Monsieur the Mayor knows how to drive? "

" Yes."

" Well, Monsieur the Mayor will travel alone and without
baggage, so as not to overload the horse."

" Agreed."

" But Monsieur the Mayor, having no one with him, will be
obliged to take the trouble of seeing to the oats himself."

" So said."

" I must have thirty francs a day, the days he rests included.
Not a penny less, and the fodder of the beast at the expense of
Monsieur the Mayor."

Monsieur Madeleine took three Napoleons from his purse and
laid them on the table.

" There is two days, in advance."

" Fourthly, for such a trip, a chaise would be too heavy; that
would tire the horse. Monsieur the Mayor must consent to
travel in a little tilbury that I have."

" I consent to that."

" It is light, but it is open."

" It is all the same to me."

" Has Monsieur the Mayor reflected that it is winter? "

Monsieur Madeleine did not answer; the Fleming went on:

" That it is very cold ? "

Monsieur Madeleine kept silence.

Master Scaufflaire continued :

"That it may rain?"

Monsieur Madeleine raised his head and said :

" The horse and the tilbury will be before my door to-morrow
at half -past four in the morning."

" That is understood, Monsieur Mayor," answered Scaufflaire,
then scratching a stain on the top of the table with his thumb

Fantine 209

nail, he resumed with that careless air that Flemings so well
know how to associate with their shrewdness :

" Why, I have just thought of it ! Monsieur the Mayor has
not told me where he is going. Where is Monsieur the Mayor
going?"

He had thought of nothing else since the beginning of the
conversation, but without knowing why, he had not dared to ask
the question.

" Has your horse good forelegs? " said Monsieur Madeleine.

" Yes, Monsieur Mayor. You will hold him up a little going
downhill. Is there much downhill between here and where you
are go ing? "

" Don't forget to be at my door precisely at half-past four in
the morning," answered Monsieur Madeleine, and he went out.

The Fleming was left " dumb-founded," as he said himself
some time afterwards.

The mayor had been gone two or three minutes, when the
door again opened ; it was the mayor.

He had the same impassive and absent-minded air as ever.

" Monsieur Scaufflaire," said he, " at what sum do you value
the horse and the tilbury that you furnish me, the one carrying
the other?"

" The one drawing the other, Monsieur Mayor/' said the
Fleming with a loud laugh.

" As you like. How much ? "

" Does Monsieur the Mayor wish to buy them ? "

" No, but at all events I wish to guarantee them to you. On
my return you can give me back the amount. At how much do
you value horse and chaise ? "

" Five hundred francs, Monsieur Mayor! "

" Here it is."

Monsieur Madeleine placed a banknote on the table, then
went out, and this time did not return.

Master Scaufflaire regretted terribly that he had not said a
thousand francs. In fact, the horse and tilbury, in the lump,
were worth a hundred crowns.

The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her.
Where the deuce could the mayor be going? They talked it
over. " He is going to Paris," said the wife. " I don't believe
it," said the husband. Monsieur Madeleine had forgotten the
paper on which he had marked the figures, and left it on the
mantel. The Fleming seized it and studied it. Five, six,
eight and a half? this must mean the relays of the post. He

2io Lcs Miserables

turned to his wife: " I have found it out." " How? " " It
is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from Hesdin to Saint Pol,
eight and a half from Saint Pol to Arras. He is going to Arras."

Meanwhile Monsieur Madeleine had reached home. To
return from Master Scaufflaire's he had taken a longer road, as
if the door of the parsonage were a temptation to him, and he
wished to avoid it. He went up to his room, and shut himself
in, which was nothing remarkable, for he usually went to bed
early. However, the janitress of the factory, who was at the
same time Monsieur Madeleine's only servant, observed that his
light was out at half-past eight, and she mentioned it to the
cashier who came in, adding :

" Is Monsieur the Mayor sick ? I thought that his manner
was a little singular."

The cashier occupied a room situated exactly beneath
Monsieur Madeleine's. He paid no attention to the portress's
words, went to bed, and went to sleep. Towards midnight he
suddenly awoke; he had heard, in his sleep, a noise overhead.
He listened. It was a step that went and came, as if some one
were walking in the room above. He listened more attentively,
and recognised Monsieur Madeleine's step. That appeared
strange to him; ordinarily no noise was made in Monsieur
Madeleine's room before his hour of rising. A moment after-
wards, the cashier heard something that sounded like the open-
ing and shutting of a wardrobe, then a piece of furniture was
moved, there was another silence, and the step began again.
The cashier rose up in bed, threw off his drowsiness, looked out,
and through his window-panes, saw upon an opposite wall the
ruddy reflection of a lighted window. From the direction of
the rays, it could only be the window of Monsieur Madeleine's
chamber. The reflection trembled as if it came rather from a
bright fire than from a light. The shadow of the sash could not
be seen, which indicated that the window was wide open. Cold
as it was, this open window was surprising. The cashier fell
asleep again. An hour or two afterwards he awoke again. The
same step, slow and regular, was coming and going constantly
over his head.

The reflection continued visible upon the wall, but it was now
pale and steady like the light from a lamp or a candle. The
window was still open.
Let us see what was passing in Monsieur Madeleine's room*

Famine 2 1 1

III

A TEMPEST IN A BRAIN

THE reader has doubtless divined that Monsieur Madeleine is
none other than Jean Valjean.

We have already looked into the depths of that conscience;
the time has come to look into them again. We do so not
without emotion, nor without trembling. There exists nothing
more terrific than this kind of contemplation. The mind's eye
can nowhere find anything more dazzling nor more dark than
in man; it can fix itself upon nothing which is more awful, more
complex, more mysterious, or more infinite. There is one spec-
tacle grander than the sea, that is the sky ; there is one spectacle
grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

To write the poem of the human conscience, were it only of a
single man, were it only of the most infamous of men, would be
to swallow up all epics in a superior and final epic. The con-
science is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts and of temptations, the
furnace of dreams, the cave of the ideas which are our shame;
it is the pandemonium of sophisms, the battle-field of the
passions. At certain hours, penetrate within the livid face of
a human being who reflects, and look at what lies behind ; look
into that soul, look into that obscurity. There, beneath the
external silence, there are combats of giants as in Homer, melees
of dragons and hydras, and clouds of phantoms as in Milton,
ghostly labyrinths as in Dante. What a gloom enwraps that
infinite which each man bears within himself, and by which he
measures in despair the desires of his will, and the actions of his
life!

Alighieri arrived one day at an ill-omened door before which
he hesitated. Here is one also before us, on the threshold of
which we hesitate. Let us enter notwithstanding.

We have but little to add to what the reader already knows,
concerning what had happened to Jean Valjean, since his
adventure with Petit Gervais. From that moment, we have
seen, he was another man. What the bishop had desired to do
with him, that he had executed. It was more than a trans-
formation— it was a transfiguration.

He succeeded in escaping from sight, sold the bishop's silver,
keeping only the candlesticks as souvenirs, glided quietly from
city to city across France, came to M sur M , conceived

212 Les Miserables

the idea that we have described, accomplished what we have
related, gained the point of making himself unassailable and

inaccessible, and thenceforward, established at M sur M ,

happy to feel his conscience saddened by his past, and the last
half of his existence giving the lie to the first, he lived peaceable,
reassured, and hopeful, having but two thoughts: to conceal his
name, and to sanctify his life ; to escape from men and to return
to God.

These two thoughts were associated so closely in his mind,
that they formed but a single one; they were both equally
absorbing and imperious, and ruled his slightest actions. Ordin-
arily they were in harmony in the regulation of the conduct of
his life; they turned him towards the dark side of life; they
made him benevolent and simple-hearted; they counselled him
to the same things. Sometimes, however, there was a conflict
between them. In such cases, it will be remembered, the man,

whom all the country around M sur M called Monsieur

Madeleine, did not waver in sacrificing the first to the second,
his security to his virtue. Thus, in despite of all reserve and of
all prudence, he had kept the bishop's candlesticks, worn mourn-
ing for him, called and questioned all the little Savoyards who
passed by, gathered information concerning the families at
Faverolles, and saved the life of old Fauchelevent, in spite of the
disquieting insinuations of Javert. It would seem, we have
already remarked, that he thought, following the example of all
who have been wise, holy, and just, that his highest duty was
not towards himself.

But of all these occasions, it must be said, none had ever been
anything like that which was now presented.

Never had the two ideas that governed the unfortunate man
whose sufferings we are relating, engaged in so serious a struggle.
He comprehended this confusedly, but thoroughly, from the first
words that Javert pronounced on entering his office. At the
moment when that name which he had so deeply buried was so
strangely uttered, he was seized with stupor, and as if intoxi-
cated by the sinister grotesqueness of his destiny, and through
that stupor he felt the shudder which precedes great shocks;
he bent like an oak at the approach of a storm, like a soldier at
the approach of an assault. He felt clouds full of thunderings
and lightnings gathering upon his head. Even while listening
to Javert, his first thought was to go, to run, to denounce him-
self, to drag this Champmathieu out of prison, and to put himself
in his place; it was painful and sharp as an incision into the

Fantine 213

living flesh, but passed away, and he said to himself: " Let us
see 1 Let us see ! " He repressed this first generous impulse
and recoiled before such heroism.

Doubtless it would have been fane if, after the holy words of
the bishop, after so many years of repentance and self-denial,
in the midst of a penitence admirably commenced, even in the
presence of so terrible a conjecture, he had not faltered an
instant, and had continued to march on with even pace towards
that yawning pit at the bottom of which was heaven; this
would have been fine, but this was not the case. We must
render an account of what took place in that soul, and we can
relate only what was there. What first gained control was the
instinct of self-preservation; he collected his ideas hastily,
stifled his emotions, took into consideration the presence of
Javert, the great danger, postponed any decision with the firm-
ness of terror, banished from his mind all consideration of the
course he should pursue, and resumed his calmness as a gladiator
retakes his buckler.

For the rest of the day he was in this state, a tempest within,
a perfect calm without; he took only what might be called pre-
cautionary measures. All was still confused and jostling in his
brain ; the agitation there was such that he did not see distinctly
the form of any idea ; and he could have told nothing of himself,
unless it were that he had just received a terrible blow. He went
according to his habit to the sick bed of Fantine, and prolonged
his visit, by an instinct of kindness, saying to himself that he
ought to do so, and recommend her earnestly to the sisters, in
case it should happen that he would have to be absent. He felt
vaguely that it would perhaps be necessary for him to go to
Arras; and without having in the least decided upon this
journey, he said to himself that, entirely free from suspicion as
he was, there would be no difficulty in being a witness of what
might pass, and he engaged Scaufiflaire's tilbury, in order to be
prepared for any emergency.

He dined with a good appetite.

Returning to his room he collected his thoughts*

He examined the situation and found it an unheard-of
one; so unheard-of that in the midst of his revery, by some
strange impulse of almost inexplicable anxiety, he rose from
his chair, and bolted his door. He feared lest something might
yet enter. He barricaded himself against all possibilities.

A moment afterwards he blew out his light. It annoyed him.

It seemed to him that somebody could see him*

214 Les Miserables

Who ? Somebody ?

Alas! what he wanted to keep out of doors had entered}
what he wanted to render blind was looking upon him. His
conscience.

His conscience, that is to say, God.

At the first moment, however, he deluded himself; he had a
feeling of safety and solitude; the bolt drawn, he believed him-
self invisible. Then he took possession of himself; he placed
his elbows on the table, rested his head on his hand, and set
himself to meditating in the darkness.

" Where am I ? Am I not in a dream ? What have I heard ?
Is it really true that I saw this Javert, and that he talked to me
so ? Who can this Champmathieu be ? He resembles me then ?
Is it possible? When I think that yesterday I was so calm,
and so far from suspecting anything! What was I doing
yesterday at this time? What is there in this matter? How
will it turn out? What is to be done? "

Such was the torment he was in. His brain had lost the
power of retaining its ideas; they passed away like waves, and
he grasped his forehead with both hands to stop them.

Out of this tumult, which overwhelmed his will and his
reason, and from which he sought to draw a certainty and a
resolution, nothing came clearly forth but anguish.

His brain was burning. He went to the window and threw
it wide open. Not a star was in the sky. He returned and sat
down by the table.

The first hour thus rolled away.

Little by little, however, vague outlines began to take form
and to fix themselves in his meditation ; he could perceive, with
the precision of reality, not the whole of the situation, but a
few details.

He began by recognising that, however extraordinary and
critical the situation was, he was completely master of it.

His stupor only became the deeper.

Independently of the severe and religious aim that his actions
had in view, all that he had done up to this day was only a
hole that he was digging in which to bury his name. What he
had always most dreaded, in his hours of self-communion, in
his sleepless nights, was the thought of ever hearing that name
pronounced ; he felt that would be for him the end of all ; that
the day on which that name should reappear would see vanish
from around him his new life, and, who knows, even perhaps
his new soul from within him. He shuddered at the bare

Fantine 2 1 5

thought that it was possible. Surely, if any one had told him
at such moments that an hour would come when that name
would resound in his ear, when that hideous word, Jean Valjean,
would start forth suddenly from the night and stand before
him; when this fearful glare, destined to dissipate the mystery
in which he had wrapped himself, would flash suddenly upon
his head, and that this name would not menace him, and that
this glare would only make his obscurity the deeper, that this
rending of the veil would increase the mystery, that this earth-
quake would consolidate his edifice, that this prodigious event
would have no other result, if it seemed good to him, to himself
alone, than to render his existence at once more brilliant and
more impenetrable, and that, from his encounter with the
phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy citizen, Monsieur
Madeleine, would come forth more honoured, more peaceful,
and more respected than ever — if any one had said this to him,
he would have shaken his head and looked upon the words as
nonsense. Well! precisely that had happened; all this group-
ing of the impossible was now a fact, and God had permitted
these absurdities to become real things !

His musings continued to grow clearer. He was getting a
wider and wider view of his position.

It seemed to him that he had just awaked from some wondrous
slumber, and that he found himself gliding over a precipice in
the middle of the night, standing, shivering, recoiling in vain,
upon the very edge of an abyss. He perceived distinctly in the
gloom an unknown man, a stranger, whom fate had mistaken
for him, and was pushing into the gulf in his place. It was
necessary, in order that the gulf should be closed, that some
one should fall in, he or the other.

He had only to let it alone.

The light became complete, and he recognised this : That his
place at the galleys was empty, that do what he could it was
always awaiting him, that the robbing of Petit Gervais sent him
back there, that this empty place would await him and attract
him until he should be there, that this was inevitable and fatal.
And then he said to himself : That at this very moment he had
a substitute, that it appeared that a man named Champmathieu
had that unhappy lot, and that, as for himself, present in future
at the galleys in the person of this Champmathieu, present in
society under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, he had nothing
more to fear, provided he did not prevent men from sealing
upon the head of this Champmathieu that stone of infamy

2i 6 Les Miserables

which, like the stone of the sepulchre, falls once never to rise
again.

All this was so violent and so strange that he suddenly felt
that kind of indescribable movement that no man experiences
more than two or three times in his life, a sort of convulsion of
the conscience that stirs up all that is dubious in the heart,
which is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which
might be called a burst of interior laughter.

He hastily relighted his candle.

" Well, what! " said he, " what am I afraid of? why do I
ponder over these things? I am now safe? all is finished.
There was but a single half-open door through which my past
could make an irruption into my life; that door is now walled
up 1 for ever I This Javert who has troubled me so long, that
fearful instinct which seemed to have divined the truth, that
had divined it, in fact! and which followed me everywhere,
that terrible bloodhound always in pursuit of me, he is thrown
off the track, engrossed elsewhere, absolutely baffled. He is
satisfied henceforth, he will leave me in quiet, he holds his Jean
Valjean fast! Who knows! it is even probable that he will
want to leave the city! And all this is accomplished without
my aid! And I have nothing to do with it! Ah, yes, but,
what is there unfortunate in all this! People who should see
me, upon my honour, would think that a catastrophe had
befallen me! After all, if there is any harm done to anybody,
it is in nowise my fault. Providence has done it all. This is
what He wishes apparently. Have I the right to disarrange
what He arranges? What is it that I ask for now? Why do
I interfere ? It does not concern me. How ! I am not satisfied !
But what would I have then ? The aim to which I have aspired
for so many years, my nightly dream, the object of my prayers
to heaven, security, I have gained it. It is God's will. I must
do nothing contrary to the will of God. And why is it God's
will ? That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do
good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example,
that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness
resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this
virtue to which I have returned! Really I do not understand
why I was so much afraid to go to this honest cur6 and tell him
the whole story as a confessor, and ask his advice; this is
evidently what he would have said to me. It is decided, let
the matter alone ! let us not interfere with God."

Thus he spoke in the depths of his conscience, hanging over

Fantine 217

what might be called his own abyss. He rose from his chair,
and began to walk the room. " Come/' said he, " let us think
of it no more. The resolution is formed ! " But he felt no joy.

Quite the contrary.

One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea
than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the
sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty, it is
called remorse. God upheaves the soul as well as the ocean.

After the lapse of a few moments, he could do no otherwise,
he resumed this sombre dialogue, in which it was himself who
spoke and himself who listened, saying what he wished to keep
silent, listening to what he did not wish to hear, yielding to
that mysterious power which said to him: " think 1 " as it said
two thousand years ago to another condemned: " march! "

Before going further, and in order to be fully understood, it
is necessary that we should make with some emphasis a single
observation.

It is certain that we talk with ourselves ; there is not a think-
ing being who has not experienced that. We may say even
that the word is never a more magnificent mystery than when
it goes, in the interior of a man, from his thoughts to his con-
science, and returns from his conscience to his thought. It is
in this sense only that the words must be understood, so often
employed in this chapter, he said, he exclaimed ; we say to our-
selves, we speak to ourselves, we exclaim within ourselves, the
external silence not being broken. There is a great tumult
within; everything within us speaks, except the tongue. The
realities of the soul, because they are not visible and palpable,
are not the less realities.

He asked himself then where he was. He questioned himself
upon this " resolution formed." He confessed to himself that
all that he had been arranging in his mind was monstrous, that
" to let the matter alone, not to interfere with God," was simply
horrible, to let this mistake of destiny and of men be accom-
plished, not to prevent it, to lend himself to it by his silence, to
do nothing, finally, was to do all! it was the last degree of
hypocritical meanness ! it was a base, cowardly, lying, abject,
hideous crime!

For the first time within eight years, the unhappy man had
just tasted the bitter flavour of a wicked thought and a wicked
action.

He spit it out with disgust.

He continued to question himself. He sternly asked himself

2 i 8 Les Miserables

what he had understood by this : " My object is attained." He
declared that his life, in truth, did have an object. But what
object? to conceal his name ? to deceive the police? was it for
so petty a thing that he had done all that he had done? had
he no other object, which was the great one, which was the true
one? To save, not his body, but his soul. To become honest
and good again. To be an upright man ! was it not that above
all, that alone, which he had always wished, and which the
bishop had enjoined upon him ? To close the door on his past ?
But he was not closing it; great God ! he was re-opening it by
committing an infamous act! for he became a robber again,
and the most odious of robbers ! he robbed another of his exist-
ence, his life, his peace, his place in the world, he became an
assassin ! he murdered, he murdered in a moral sense a wretched
man, he inflicted upon him that frightful life in death, that
living burial, which is called the galleys! on the contrary, to
deliver himself up, to save this man stricken by so ghastly a
mistake, to reassume his name, to become again from duty the
convict Jean Valjean; that was really to achieve his resurrec-
tion, and to close for ever the hell from whence he had emerged 1
to fall back into it in appearance, was to emerge in reality ! he
must do that! all he had done was nothing, if he did not do
that ! all his life was useless, all his suffering was lost. He had
only to ask the question: " What is the use? " He felt that
the bishop was there, that the bishop was present all the more
that he was dead, that the bishop was looking fixedly at him,
that henceforth Mayor Madeleine with all his virtues would be
abominable to him, and the galley slave, Jean Valjean, would
be admirable and pure in his sight. That men saw his mask,
but the bishop saw his face. That men saw his life, but the
bishop saw his conscience. He must then go to Arras, deliver
the wrong Jean Valjean, denounce the right one. Alas! that
was the greatest of sacrifices, the most poignant of victories,
the final step to be taken, but he must do it. Mournful destiny 1
he could only enter into sanctity in the eyes of God, by returning
into infamy in the eyes of men !

" Well," said he, " let us take this course ! let us do our duty !
Let us save this man! "

He pronounced these words in a loud voice, without perceiving
that he was speaking aloud.

He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He
threw into the fire a package of notes which he held against
needy small traders. He wrote a letter, which he sealed, and

Fantine 219

upon the envelope of which might have been read, if there had
been any one in the room at the time : Monsieur Laffitte, banker,
Rue d'Artois, Paris.

He drew from a secretary a pocket-book containing some
banknotes and the passport that he had used that same year
in going to the elections.

Had any one seen him while he was doing these various acts
with such serious meditation, he would not have suspected what
was passing within him. Still at intervals his lips quivered; at
other times he raised his head and fixed his eye on some point
of the wall, as if he saw just there something that he wished
to clear up or to interrogate.

The letter to Monsieur Laffitte finished, he put it in his
pocket as well as the pocket-book, and began his walk again.

The current of his thought had not changed. He still saw
his duty clearly written in luminous letters which flared out
before his eyes, and moved with his gaze: "Go! avow thy
name t denounce thyself 1 "

He saw also, and as if they were laid bare before him with
sensible forms, the two ideas which had been hitherto the
double rule of his life, to conceal his name, and to sanctify his
soul. For the first time, they appeared to him absolutely
distinct, and he saw the difference which separated them. He
recognised that one of these ideas was necessarily good, while
the other might become evil; that the former was devotion,
and that the latter was selfishness; that the one said: " the
neighbour " and that the other said: " me ; " that the one came
from the light, and the other from the night.

They were fighting with each other. He saw them fighting.
While he was looking, they had expanded before his mind's eye;
they were now colossal; and it seemed to him that he saw
struggling within him, in that infinite of which we spoke just
now, in the midst of darkness and gloom, a goddess and a
giantess.

He was full of dismay, but it seemed to him that the good
thought was gaining the victory.

He felt that he had reached the second decisive moment of
his conscience, and his destiny; that the bishop had marked
the first phase of his new life, and that this Champmathieu
marked the second. After a great crisis, a great trial.

Meanwhile the fever, quieted for an instant, returned upon
him little by little. A thousand thoughts flashed across him,
but they fortified him in his resolution.

22O Les Miserables

One moment he had said: that perhaps he took the affair
too much to heart, that after all this Champmathieu was not
worthy of interest, that in fact he had committed theft.

He answered: If this man has in fact stolen a few apples,
that is a month in prison. There is a wide distance between
that and the galleys. And who knows even ? has he committed
theft? is it proven? the name of Jean Valjean overwhelms
him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Are not prosecuting
officers in the habit of acting thus ? They think him a robber,
because they know him to be a convict.

At another moment, the idea occurred to him that, if he
should denounce himself, perhaps the heroism of his action, and
his honest life for the past seven years, and what he had done
for the country, would be considered, and he would be pardoned.

But this supposition quickly vanished, and he smiled bitterly
at the thought, that the robbery of the forty sous from Petit
Gervais made him a second offender, that that matter would
certainly reappear, and by the precise terms of the law he
would be condemned to hard labour for life.

He turned away from all illusion, disengaged himself more
and more from the earth, and sought consolation and strength
elsewhere. He said to himself that he must do his duty; that
perhaps even he should not be more unhappy after having done
his duty than after having evaded it; that if he let matters

alone, if he remained at M sur M , his reputation, his

good name, his good works, the deference, the veneration he
commanded, his charity, his riches, his popularity, his virtue,
would be tainted with a crime, and what pleasure would there
be in all these holy things tied to that hideous thing? while, if
he carried out the sacrifice, in the galleys, with his chain, with
his iron collar, with his green cap, with his perpetual labour,
with his pitiless shame, there would be associated a celestial
idea.

Finally, he said to himself that it was a necessity, that his
destiny was so fixed, that it was not for him to derange the
arrangements of God, that at all events he must choose, either
virtue without, and abomination within, or sanctity within,
and infamy without.

In revolving so many gloomy ideas, his courage did not fail,
but his brain was fatigued. He began in spite of himself to
think of other things, of indifferent things.

His blood rushed violently to his temples. He walked back
and forth constantly. Midnight was struck first from the

Fantine 221

parish church, then from the city hall. He counted the twelve
strokes of the two clocks, and he compared the sound of the
two bells. It reminded him that, a few days before, he had
seen at a junkshop an old bell for sale, upon which was this
name: Antoine Albin de Romainville.

He was cold. He kindled a fire. He did not think to close
the window.

Meanwhile he had fallen into his stupor again. It required
not a little effort to recall his mind to what he was thinking of
before the clocks struck. He succeeded at last.

" Ah ! yes," said he, " I had formed the resolution to
denounce myself."

And then all at once he thought of Fantine.

" Stop ! " said he, " this poor woman ! "

Here was a new crisis.

Fantine abruptly appearing in his reverie, was like a ray of
unexpected light. It seemed to him that everything around
him was changing its aspect; he exclaimed:

" Ah ! yes, indeed ! so far I have only thought of myself ! I
have only looked to my own convenience ! It is whether I shall
keep silent or denounce myself, conceal my body or save my
soul, be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an infamous
and venerable galley slave; it is myself, always myself, only
myself. But, good God! all this is egotism. Different forms
of egotism, but still egotism ! Suppose I should think a little of
others? The highest duty is to think of others. Let us see,
let us examine! I gone, I taken away, I forgotten; what will
become of all this? I denounce myself? I am arrested, this
Champmathieu is released, I am sent back to the galleys ; very
well, and what then ? what takes place here ? Ah ! here, there
is a country, a city, factories, a business, labourers, men, women,
old grandfathers, children, poor people! I have created all
this, I keep it all alive; wherever a chimney is smoking, I have
put the brands in the fire and the meat in the pot; I have
produced ease, circulation, credit; before me there was nothing;
I have aroused, vivified, animated, quickened, stimulated, en-
riched, all the country; without me, the soul is gone. I take
myself away; it all dies. And this woman who has suffered so
much, who is so worthy in her fall, all whose misfortunes I have
unconsciously caused! And that child which I was going for,
which I have promised to the mother! Do I not also owe
something to this woman, in reparation for the wrong that I
have done her? If I should disappear, what happens? The-

222 Les Miserables

mother dies. The child becomes what she may. This is what
comes to pass, if I denounce myself; and if I do not denounce
myself? Let us see, if I do not denounce myself? "

After putting this question, he stopped; for a moment he
hesitated and trembled; but that moment was brief, and he
answered with calmness:

" Well, this man goes to the galleys, it is true, but, what of
that? He has stolen! It is useless for me to say he has not
stolen, he has stolen! As for me, I remain here, I go on. In
ten years I shall have made ten millions; I scatter it over the
country, I keep nothing for myself; what is it to me? What I
am doing is not for myself. The prosperity of all goes on
increasing, industry is quickened and excited, manufactories
and workshops are multiplied, families, a hundred families, a
thousand families, are happy; the country becomes populous;
villages spring up where there were only farms, farms spring up
where there was nothing ; poverty disappears, and with poverty
disappear debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder, all vices, all
crimes! And this poor mother brings up her child! and the
whole country is rich and honest ! Ah, yes ! How foolish, how
absurd I was ! What was I speaking of in denouncing myself ?
This demands reflection, surely, and nothing must be precipi-
tate. What! because it would have pleased me to do the
grand and the generous! That is melodramatic, after all!
Because I only thought of myself, of myself alone, what! to
save from a punishment perhaps a little too severe, but in
reality just, nobody knows who, a thief, a scoundrel at any rate.
Must an entire country be let go to ruin ! must a poor hapless
woman perish in the hospital ! must a poor little girl perish on
the street! like dogs! Ah! that would be abominable! And
the mother not even see her child again ! and the child hardly
have known her mother ! And all that for this old whelp of an
apple-thief, who, beyond all doubt, deserves the galleys for
something else, if not for this. Fine scruples these, which save
an old vagabond who has, after all, only a few years to live, and
who will hardly be more unhappy in the galleys than in his
hovel, and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives,
children! This poor little Cosette who has no one but me in
the world, and who is doubtless at this moment all blue with
cold, in the hut of these Thenardiers ! They too are miserable
rascals! And I should fail in my duty towards all these poor
beings! And I should go away and denounce myself! And I
should commit this silly blunder! Take it at the very worst.

Fantine 223

Suppose there were a misdeed for me in this, and that my con-
science should some day reproach me; the acceptance for the
good of others of these reproaches which weigh only upon me,
of this misdeed which affects only my own soul, why, that is
devotion, that is virtue."

He arose and resumed his walk. This time it seemed to him
that he was satisfied.

Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth;
truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to
him that after having descended into these depths, after having
groped long in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last
found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he
held it in his hand ; and it blinded him to look at it.

" Yes," thought he, " that is it! I am in the true road. I
have the solution. I must end by holding fast to something.
My choice is made. Let the matter alone! No more vacilla-
tion, no more shrinking. This is in the interest of all, not in
my own. I am Madeleine, I remain Madeleine. Woe to him
who is Jean Valjean ! He and I are no longer the same. I do
not recognise that man, I no longer know what he is; if it is
found that anybody is Jean Valjean at this hour, let him take
care of himself. That does not concern me. That is a fatal
name which is floating about in the darkness; if it stops and
settles upon any man, so much the worse for that man."

He looked at himself in the little mirror that hung over his
mantel-piece and said :

" Yes ! To come to a resolution has solaced me ! I am quite
another man now ! "

He took a few steps more, then he stopped short.

" Come ! " said he, "I must not hesitate before any of the
consequences of the resolution I have formed. There are yet
some threads which knit me to this Jean Valjean. They must
be broken ! There are, in this very room, objects which would
accuse me, mute things which would be witnesses; it is done,
all these must disappear."

He felt in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took
out a little key.

He put this key into a lock the hole of which was hardly
visible, lost as it was in the darkest shading of the figures on
the paper which covered the wall. A secret door opened; a
kind of false press built between the corner of the wall and the
casing of the chimney. There was nothing in this closet but a
few refuse trifles; a blue smock-frock, an old pair of trousers,

224 Les Miserables

an old haversack, and a great thorn stick, iron-bound at both
ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean at the time he passed

through D , in October, 1815, would have recognised easily

all the fragments of this miserable outfit.

He had kept them, as he had kept the silver candlesticks, to
remind him at all times of what he had been. But he concealed
what came from the galleys, and left the candlesticks that came
from the bishop in sight.

He cast a furtive look towards the door, as if he were afraid
it would open in spite of the bolt that held it; then with a
quick and hasty movement, and at a single armful, without
even a glance at these things which he had kept so religiously
and with so much danger during so many years, he took the
whole, rags, stick, haversack, and threw them all into the fire.

He shut up the false press, and, increasing his precautions,
henceforth useless, since it was empty, concealed the door behind
a heavy piece of furniture which he pushed against it.

In a few seconds, the room and the wall opposite were lit up
with a great, red, flickering glare. It was all burning; the
thorn stick cracked and threw out sparks into the middle of
the room.

The haversack, as it was consumed with the horrid rags which
it contained, left something uncovered which glistened in the
ashes. By bending towards it, one could have easily recognised
a piece of silver. It was doubtless the forty sous piece stolen
from the little Savoyard.

But he did not look at the fire; he continued his walk to
and fro, always at the same pace.

Suddenly has eyes fell upon the two silver candlesticks on the
mantel, which were glistening dimly in the reflection.

" Stop ! " thought he, " all Jean Valjean is contained in them
too. They also must be destroyed."

He took the two candlesticks.

There was fire enough to melt them quickly into an unrecog-
nisable ingot.

He bent over the fire and warmed himself a moment. It felt
really comfortable to him. " The pleasant warmth! " said he.

He stirred the embers with one of the candlesticks.

A minute more, and they would have been in the fire.

At that moment, it seemed to him that he heard a voice
crying within him: " Jean Valjean ! " " Jean Valjean ! "

His hair stood on end; he was like a man who hears som«
terrible thing.

Fantine 225

" Yes ! that is it, finish ! " said the voice, " complete what
you are doing! destroy these candlesticks! annihilate this
memorial! forget the bishop! forget all! ruin this Champ-
mathieu, yes ! very well. Applaud yourself ! So it is arranged,
it is determined, it is done. Behold a man, a greybeard who
knows not what he is accused of, who has done nothing, it may
be, an innocent man, whose only misfortune is caused by your
name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime, who will be
taken instead of you; will be condemned, will end his days in
abjection and in horror! very well. Be an honoured man
yourself. Remain, Monsieur Mayor, remain honourable and
honoured, enrich the city, feed the poor, bring up the orphans,
live happy, virtuous, and admired, and all this time while you
are here in joy and in the light, there shall be a man wearing
your red blouse, bearing your name in ignominy, and dragging
your chain in the galleys! Yes! this is a fine arrangement!
Oh, wretch ! "

The sweat rolled off his forehead. He looked upon the
candlesticks with haggard eyes. Meanwhile the voice which
spoke within him had not ended. It continued :

" Jean Valjean ! there shall be about you many voices which
will make great noise, which will speak very loud, and which
will bless you ; and one only which nobody shall hear, and which
will curse you in the darkness. Well, listen, wretch! all these
blessings shall fall before they reach Heaven; only the curse
shall mount into the presence of God ! "

This voice, at first quite feeble, and which was raised from
the most obscure depths of his conscience, had become by
degrees loud and formidable, and he heard it now at his ear.
It seemed to him that it had emerged from himself, and that
it was speaking now from without. He thought he heard the
last words so distinctly that he looked about the room with a
kind of terror.

" Is there anybody here? " asked he, aloud and in a startled
voice.

Then he continued with a laugh, which was like the laugh of
an idiot:

" What a fool I am ! there cannot be anybody here."

There was One; but He who was there was not of such as
the human eye can see.

He put the candlesticks on the mantel.

Then he resumed this monotonous and dismal walk, which

I H

226 Les Miserables

disturbed the man asleep beneath him in his dreams, and
wakened him out of his sleep.

This walk soothed him and excited him at the same time.
It sometimes seems that on the greatest occasions we put our-
selves in motion in order to ask advice from whatever we may
meet by change of place. After a few moments he no longer
knew where he was.

He now recoiled with equal terror from each of the resolutions
which he had formed in turn. Each of the two ideas which
counselled him, appeared to him as fatal as the other. What a
fatality! What a chance that this Champmathieu should be
mistaken for him! To be hurled down headlong by the very
means which Providence seemed at first to have employed to
give him full security.

There was a moment during which he contemplated the future.
Denounce himself, great God ! Give himself up ! He saw with
infinite despair all that he must leave, all that he must resume.
He must then bid farewell to this existence, so good, so pure,
so radiant; to this respect of all, to honour, to liberty! No
more would he go out to walk in the fields, never again would
he hear the birds singing in the month of May, never more give
alms to the little children ! No longer would he feel the sweet-
ness of looks of gratitude and of love! He would leave this
house that he had built, this little room 1 Everything appeared
charming to him now. He would read no more in these books,
he would write no more on this little white wood table! His
old portress, the only servant he had, would no longer bring
him his coffee in the morning. Great God ! instead of that, the
galley-crew, the iron collar, the red blouse, the chain at his
foot, fatigue, the dungeon, the plank-bed, all these horrors,
which he knew so well ! At his age, after having been what he
was! If he were still young! But so old, to be insulted by
the first comer, to be tumbled about by the prison guard, to
be struck by the jailor's stick ! To have his bare feet in iron-
bound shoes! To submit morning and evening his leg to the
hammer of the roundsman who tests the fetters! To endure
the curiosity of strangers who would be told: This one is the

famous Jean Valjean, who was Mayor of M sur M /

At night, dripping with sweat, overwhelmed with weariness, the
green cap over his eyes, to mount two by two, under the ser-
geant's whip, the step-ladder of the floating prison. Oh, what
wretchedness! Can destiny then be malignant like an intelli-
gent being, and become monstrous like the human heart?

Fantine 227

And do what he might, he always fell back upon this sharp
dilemma which was at the bottom of his thought. To remain
in paradise and there become a demon! To re-enter into hell
and there become an angel !

What shall be done, great God ! what shall be done ?

The torment from which he had emerged with so much diffi-
culty, broke loose anew within him. His ideas again began to
become confused. They took that indescribable, stupefied, and
mechanical shape, which is peculiar to despair. The name of
Romainville returned constantly to his mind, with two lines of
a song he had formerly heard. He thought that Romainville
is a little wood near Paris, where young lovers go to gather
lilacs in the month of April.

He staggered without as well as within. He walked like a
little child that is just allowed to go alone.

Now and then, struggling against his fatigue, he made an
effort again to arouse his intellect. He endeavoured to state,
finally and conclusively, the problem over which he had in some
sort fallen exhausted. Must he denounce himself? Must he
be silent? He could see nothing distinctly. The vague forms
of all the reasonings thrown out by his mind trembled, and
were dissipated one after another in smoke. But this much he
felt, that by whichever resolve he might abide, necessarily, and
without possibility of escape, something of himself would surely
die; that he was entering into a sepulchre on the right hand,
as well as on the left; that he was suffering a death-agony, the
death-agony of his happiness, or the death-agony of his virtue.

Alas ! all his irresolutions were again upon him. He was no
further advanced than when he began.

So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen
hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious
Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the
sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were
shivering in the fierce breath of the Infinite, had long put away
from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him,
dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the
star-filled depths.

228 Les Miserables

FORMS ASSUMED BY SUFFERING DURING SLEEP

THE clock struck three. For five hours he had been walking
thus, almost without interruption, when he dropped into his
chair.

He fell asleep and dreamed.

This dream, like most dreams, had no further relation to the
condition of affairs than its mournful and poignant character,
but it made an impression upon him. This nightmare struck
him so forcibly that he afterwards wrote it down. It is one of
the papers in his own handwriting, which he has left behind
him. We think it our duty to copy it here literally.

Whatever this dream may be, the story of that night would
be incomplete if we should omit it. It is the gloomy adventure
of a sick soul.

It is as follows : Upon the envelope we find this line written :
" The dream that 1 had that night"

" I was in a field. A great sad field where there was no grass.
It did not seem that it was day, nor that it was night.

" I was walking with my brother, the brother of my child-
hood ; this brother of whom I must say that I never think, and
whom I scarcely remember.

" We were talking, and we met others walking. We were
speaking of a neighbour we had formerly, who, since she had
lived in the street, always worked with her window open. Even
while we talked, we felt cold on account of that open window.

" There were no trees in the field.

" We saw a man passing near us. He was entirely naked,
ashen-coloured, mounted upon a horse which was of the colour
of earth. The man had no hair; we saw his skull and the
veins in his skull. In his hand he held a stick which was limber
like a twig of grape vine, and heavy as iron. This horseman
passed by and said nothing.

" My brother said to me: ' Let us take the deserted road.'

" There was a deserted road where we saw not a bush, nor
even a sprig of moss. All was of the colour of earth, even the
sky. A few steps further, and no one answered me when I
spoke. I perceived that my brother was no longer with me.

" I entered a village which I saw. I thought that it must be
Romainville (why Romainville?).1

1 This parenthesis is in the hand of Jean Valjean.

Fantine 229

" The first street by which I entered was deserted. I passed
into a second street. At the corner of the two streets was a
man standing against the wall, I said to this man : ' What place
is this? Where am I? ' The man made no answer. I saw
the door of a house open, I went in.

" The first room was deserted. I entered the second. Behind
the door of this room was a man standing against the wall. I
asked this man : ' Whose house is this ? Where am I ? ' The
man made no answer. The house had a garden.

" I went out of the house and into the garden. The garden
was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing.
I said to this man : ' What is this garden ? Where am I ? '
The man made no answer.

" I wandered about the village, and I perceived that it was a
city. All the streets were deserted, all the doors were open.
No living being was passing along the streets, or stirring in the
rooms, or walking in the gardens. But behind every angle of
a wall, behind every door, behind everything, there was a man
standing who kept silence. But one could ever be seen at a
time. These men looked at me as I passed by.

" I went out of the city and began to walk in the fields.

" After a little while, I turned and I saw a great multitude
coming after me. I recognised all the men that I had seen in
the city. Their heads were strange. They did not seem to
hasten, and still they walked faster than I. They made no
sound in walking. In an instant this multitude came up and
surrounded me. The faces of these men were the colour of
earth.

" Then the first one whom I had seen and questioned en
entering the city, said to me: ' Where are you going? Do you
not know that you have been dead for a long time ? '

" I opened my mouth to answer, and I perceived that no one
was near me."

He awoke. He was chilly. A wind as cold as the morning
wind made the sashes of the still open window swing on their
hinges. The fire had gone out. The candle was low in the
socket. The night was yet dark.

He arose and went to the window. There were still no stars
in the sky.

From his window he could look into the court-yard and into
the street. A harsh, rattling noise that suddenly resounded
from the ground made him look down.

230 Les Miserablcs

He saw below him two red stars, whose rays danced back and
forth grotesquely in the shadow.

His mind was still half buried in the mist of his reverie:
" Yes ! " thought he, " there are none in the sky. They are on
the earth now."

This confusion, however, faded away ; a second noise like the
first awakened him completely; he looked, and he saw that
these two stars were the lamps of a carriage. By the light
which they emitted, he could distinguish the form of a carriage.
It was a tilbury drawn by a small white horse. The noise
which he had heard was the sound of the horse's hoofs upon
the pavement.

" What carriage is that? " said he to himself. " Who is it
that comes so early? "

At that moment there was a low rap at the door of his room.

He shuddered from head to foot and cried in a terrible voice :

"Who is there?"

Some one answered:

" I, Monsieur Mayor."

He recognised the voice of the old woman, his portress.

" Well," said he, " what is it? "

" Monsieur Mayor, it is just five o'clock."

" What is that to me? "

" Monsieur Mayor, it is the chaise."

"What chaise?"

" The tilbury."

"What tilbury?"

" Did not Monsieur the Mayor order a tilbury ? "

" No," said he.

" The driver says that he has come for Monsieur the Mayor."

"What driver?"

" Monsieur Scaufflaire's driver."

" Monsieur Scaufflaire? "

That name startled him as if a flash had passed before his face.

" Oh, yes ! " he said, " Monsieur Scaufflaire ! "

Could the old woman have seen him at that moment she would
have been frightened.

There was a long silence. He examined the flame of the
candle with a stupid air, and took some of the melted wax from
around the wick and rolled it in his fingers. The old woman
was waiting. She ventured, however, to speak again :

" Monsieur Mayor, what shall I say? "

" Say that it is right, and I am coming down."

Fan tine 2 3 I

CLOGS IN THE WHEELS

THE postal service from Arras to M sur M was still

performed at this time by the little mail waggons of the date of
the empire. These mail waggons were two-wheeled cabriolets,
lined with buckskin, hung upon jointed springs, and having
but two seats, one for the driver, the other for the traveller.
The wheels were armed with those long threatening hubs which
keep other vehicles at a distance, and which are still seen upon
the roads of Germany. The letters were carried in a huge
oblong box placed behind the cabriolet and making a part of
it. This box was painted black and the cabriolet yellow.

These vehicles, which nothing now resembles, were inde-
scribably misshapen and clumsy, and when they were seen
from a distance crawling along some road in the horizon, they
were like those insects called, I think, termites, which with a
slender body draw a great train behind. They went, however,
very fast. The mail that left Arras every night at one o'clock,

after the passing of the courier from Paris, arrived at M

sur M a little before five in the morning.

That night the mail that came down to M sur M by

the road from Hesdin, at the turn of a street just as it was
entering the city, ran against a little tilbury drawn by a white
horse, which was going in the opposite direction, and in which
there was only one person, a man wrapped in a cloak. The
wheel of the tilbury received a very severe blow. The courier
cried out to the man to stop, but the traveller did not listen
and kept on his way at a rapid trot.

" There is a man in a devilish hurry ! " said the courier.

The man who was in such a hurry was he whom we have seen
struggling in such pitiable convulsions.

Where was he going ? He could not have told. Why was he
in haste? He did not know. He went forward at haphazard.
Whither? To Arras, doubtless; but perhaps he was going
elsewhere also. At moments he felt this, and he shuddered.
He plunged into that darkness as into a yawning gulf. Some-
thing pushed him, something drew him on. What was passing
within him, no one could describe, all will understand. What
man has not entered, at least once in his life, into this dark
cavern of the unknown?

232 Les Miserables

But he had resolved upon nothing, decided nothing, deter-
mined nothing, done nothing. None of the acts of his conscience
had been final. He was more than ever as at the first moment.

Why was he going to Arras ?

He repeated what he had already said to himself when he
engaged the cabriolet of Scaufflaire, that, whatever might be
the result, there could be no objection to seeing with his own
eyes, and judging of the circumstances for himself; that it was
even prudent, that he ought to know what took place; that he
could decide nothing without having observed and scrutinised;
that in the distance every little thing seems a mountain; that
after all, when he should have seen this Champmathieu, some
wretch probably, his conscience would be very much reconciled
to letting him go to the galleys in his place; that it was true
that Javert would be there, and Brevet, Chenildieu, Cochepaille,
old convicts who had known him; but surely they would not
recognise him; bah! what an idea! that Javert was a hundred
miles off the track; that all conjectures and all suppositions
were fixed upon this Champmathieu, and that nothing is so
stubborn as suppositions and conjectures; that there was,
therefore, no danger.

That it was no doubt a dark hour, but that he should get
through it; that after all he held his destiny, evil as it might
be, in his own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to
that thought.

In reality, to tell the truth, he would have preferred not to
go to Arras.

Still he was on the way.

Although absorbed in thought, he whipped up his horse,
which trotted away at that regular and sure full trot that gets
over two leagues and a half an hour.

In proportion as the tilbury went forward, he felt something
within him which shrank back.

At daybreak he was in the open country ; the city of M

sur M was a long way behind. He saw the horizon growing

lighter; he beheld, without seeing them, all the frozen figures
of a winter dawn pass before his eyes. Morning has its spectres
as well as evening. He did not see them, but, without his con-
sciousness, and by a kind of penetration which was almost
physical, those black outlines of trees and hills added to the
tumultuous state of his soul an indescribable gloom and
apprehension.

Every time he passed one of the isolated houses that stood

Fantine 233

here and there by the side of the road, he said to himself: " But
yet, there are people there who are sleeping ! "

The trotting of the horse, the rattling of the harness, the
wheels upon the pavement, made a gentle, monotonous sound.
These things are charming when one is joyful, and mournful
when one is sad.

It was broad day when he arrived at Hesdin. He stopped
before an inn to let his horse breathe and to have some oats
given him.

This horse was, as Scaufflaire had said, of that small breed of
the Boulonnais which has too much head, too much belly, and
not enough neck, but which has an open chest, a large rump,
fine and slender legs, and a firm foot; a homely race, but strong
and sound. The excellent animal had made five leagues in
two hours, and had not turned a hair.

He did not get out of the tilbury. The stable boy who
brought the oats stooped down suddenly and examined the
left wheel.

" Have you gone far so? " said the man.

He answered, almost without breaking up his train of thought:

'Why?"

' Have you come far? " said the boy.

' Five leagues from here."

'Ah!"

' Why do you say: ah? "

The boy stooped down again, was silent a moment, with his
eye fixed on the wheel, then he rose up saying :

" To think that this wheel has just come five leagues, that is
possible, but it is very sure that it won't go a quarter of a
league now."

He sprang down from the tilbury.

" What do you say, my friend? "

" I say that it is a miracle that you have come five leagues
without tumbling, you and your horse, into some ditch on the
way. Look for yourself."

The wheel in fact was badly damaged. The collision with
the mail waggon had broken two spokes and loosened the hub
so that the nut no longer held.

" My friend," said he to the stable-boy, " is there a wheel-
wright here? "

" Certainly, monsieur."

" Do me the favour to go for him."

" There he is, close by. Hallo, Master Bourgaillard ! "

234 Les Miserables

Master Bourgaillard the wheelwright was on his own door-
step. He came and examined the wheel, and made such a
grimace as a surgeon makes at the sight of a broken leg.

" Can you mend that wheel on the spot? "

" Yes, monsieur."

" When can I start again? "

" To-morrow."

"To-morrow!"

" It is a good day's work. Is monsieur in a great hurry? "

" A very great hurry. I must leave in an hour at the latest."

" Impossible, monsieur."

" I will pay whatever you like."

" Impossible."

"Well! in two hours."

" Impossible to-day. There are two spokes and a hub to be
repaired. Monsieur cannot start again before to-morrow."

" My business cannot wait till to-morrow. Instead of mend-
ing this wheel, cannot it be replaced? "

" How so? "

" You are a wheelwright? "

" Certainly, monsieur."

" Have not you a wheel to sell me? I could start away at
once."

" A wheel to exchange? "

" Yes."

" I have not a wheel made for your cabriolet. Two wheels
make a pair. Two wheels don't go together haphazard."

" In that case, sell me a pair of wheels."

" Monsieur, every wheel doesn't go on to every axle."

" But try."

" It's of no use, monsieur. I have nothing but cart wheels
to sell. We are a small place here."

" Have you a cabriolet to let? "

The wheelwright, at the first glance, had seen that the tilbury
was a hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders.

"You take good care of the cabriolets that you hire! I
should have one a good while before I would let it to you."

" Well, sell it to me."

" I have not one."

"What! not even a carriole? I am not hard to suit, as
you see."

" We are a little place. True, I have under the old shed
there," added the wheelwright, " an old chaise that belongs to

Fantine 235

a citizen of the place, who has given it to me to keep, and who
uses it every zpth of February. I would let it to you, of course
it is nothing to me. The citizen must not see it go by, and then,
it is clumsy; it would take two horses."

" I will take two post-horses."

" Where is monsieur going? "

" To Arras."

" And monsieur would like to get there to-day ? "

" I would."

" By taking post-horses? "

" Why not? "

" Will monsieur be satisfied to arrive by four o'clock to-
morrow morning? "

" No, indeed."

" I mean, you see, that there is something to be said, in
taking post-horses. Monsieur has his passport? "

" Yes."

" Well, by taking post-horses, monsieur will not reach Arras
before to-morrow. We are a cross-road. The relays are poorly
served, the horses are in the fields. The ploughing season has
just commenced; heavy teams are needed, and the horses are
taken from everywhere, from the post as well as elsewhere.
Monsieur will have to wait at least three or four hours at each
relay, and then they go at a walk. There are a good many
hills to climb."

" Well, I will go on horseback. Unhitch the cabriolet.
Somebody in the place can surely sell me a saddle."

" Certainly, but will this horse go under the saddle? "

" It is true, I had forgotten it, he will not."

" Then "

" But I can surely find in the village a horse to let? "

" A horse to go to Arras at one trip? "

" Yes."

" It would take a better horse than there is in our parts.
You would have to buy him too, for nobody knows you. But
neither to sell nor to let, neither for five hundred francs nor for
a thousand, will you find such a one."

" What shall I do? "

" The best thing to do, like a sensible man, is that I mend
the wheel and you continue your journey to-morrow."

" To-morrow will be too late."
"Confound it!"

" Is there no mail that goes to Arras? When does it pass? "

236

Les Miserables

" To-night. Both mails make the trip in the night, the up
mail as well as the down."

" How! must you take a whole day to mend this wheel? "

" A whole day, and a long one ! "

" If you set two workmen at it? "

" If I should set ten."

" If you should tie the spokes with cords ? "

" The spokes I could, but not the hub. And then the tire
is also in bad condition, too."

" Is there no livery stables in the city? "

" No."

" Is there another wheelwright? "

The stable boy and the wheelwright answered at the same
time, with a shake of the head —

" No."

He felt an immense joy.

It was evident that Providence was in the matter. It was
Providence that had broken the wheel of the tilbury and stopped
him on his way. He had not yielded to this sort of first summons ;
he had made all possible efforts to continue his journey; he
had faithfully and scrupulously exhausted every means; he
had shrunk neither before the season, nor from fatigue, nor
from expense; he had nothing for which to reproach himself.
If he went no further, it no longer concerned him. It was now
not his fault; it was, not the act of his conscience, but the act
of Providence.

He breathed. He breathed freely and with a full chest for
the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the
iron hand which had gripped his heart for twenty hours was
relaxed.

It appeared to him that now God was for him, was manifestly
for him.

He said to himself that he had done all that he could, and
that now he had only to retrace his steps, tranquilly. .

If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in
a room of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, nobody
would have heard it, the matter would have rested there, and
it is probable that we should not have had to relate any of the
events which follow, but that conversation occurred in the
street. Every colloquy in the street inevitably gathers a circle.
There are always people who ask nothing better than to be
spectators. While he was questioning the wheelwright, some
of the passers-by had stopped around them. After listening

Fan tine 237

for a few minutes, a young boy whom no one had noticed, had
separated from the group and ran away.

At the instant the traveller, after the internal deliberation
which we have just indicated, was making up his mind to go
back, this boy returned. He was accompanied by an old
woman.

" Monsieur," said the woman, " my boy tells me that you
are anxious to hire a cabriolet."

This simple speech, uttered by an old woman who was brought
there by a boy, made the sweat pour down his back. He thought
he saw the hand he was but now freed from reappear in the
shadow behind him, all ready to seize him again.

He answered:

" Yes, good woman, I am looking for a cabriolet to hire."

And he hastened to add :

" But there is none in the place."

" Yes, there is," said the dame.

" Where is it then? " broke in the wheelwright.

" At my house," replied the dame.

He shuddered. The fatal hand had closed upon him again.

The old woman had, in fact, under a shed, a sort of willow
carriole. The blacksmith and the boy at the inn, angry that
the traveller should escape them, intervened.

" It was a frightful go-cart, it had no springs, it was true the
seat was hung inside with leather straps, it would not keep out
the rain, the wheels were rusty and rotten, it couldn't go much
further than the tilbury, a real jumper ! This gentleman would
do very wrong to set out in it," etc., etc.

This was all true, but this go-cart, this jumper, this thing,
whatever it might be, went upon two wheels and could go
to Arras.

He paid what was asked, left the tilbury to be mended at the
blacksmith's against his return, had the white horse harnessed
to the carriole, got in, and resumed the route he had followed
since morning.

The moment the carriole started, he acknowledged that he
had felt an instant before a certain joy at the thought that he
should not go where he was going. He examined that joy with
a sort of anger, and thought it absurd. Why should he feel
joy at going back? After all, he was making a journey of his
own accord, nobody forced him to it.

And certainly, nothing could happen which he did not choose
to have happen.

238

Les Miserables

As he was leaving Hesdin, he heard a voice crying out : " Stop !
stop ! " He stopped the carriole with a hasty movement, in
which there was still something strangely feverish and convulsive
which resembled hope.

It was the dame's little boy.

" Monsieur," said he, " it was I who got the carriole for you."

"Well!"

" You have not given me anything."

He, who gave to all, and so freely, felt this claim was exorbi-
tant and almost odious.

"Oh! is it you, you beggar?" said he, "you shall Lare
nothing ! "

He whipped up the horse and started away at a quick trot.

He had lost a good deal of time at Hesdin, he wished to make
it up. The little horse was plucky, and pulled enough for two ;
but it was February, it had rained, the roads were bad. And
then, it was no longer the tilbury. The carriole ran hard, and
was very heavy. And besides there were many steep hills.

He was almost four hours going from Hesdin to Saint Pol.
Four hours for five leagues.

At Saint Pol he drove to the nearest inn, and had the horse
taken to the stable. As he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood
near the manger while the horse was eating. He was thinking
of things sad and confused.

The innkeeper's wife came into the stable.

" Does not monsieur wish breakfast ? "

" Why, it is true," said he, " I have a good appetite."

He followed the woman, who had a fresh and pleasant face.
She led him into a low hall, where there were some tables
covered with oilcloth.

" Be quick," said he, " I must start again. I am in a hurry."

A big Flemish servant girl waited on him in all haste. He
looked at the girl with a feeling of comfort.

" This is what ailed me," thought he. " I had not break-
fasted."

His breakfast was served. He seized the bread, bit a piece,
then slowly put it back on the table, and did not touch anything
more.

A teamster was eating at another table. He said to this
man:

" Why is their bread so bitter? "

The teamster was a German, and did not understand him.

He returned to the stable to his horse.

Fan tine 239

An hour later he had left Saint Pol, and was driving towards
Tinques, which is but five leagues from Arras.

What was he doing during the trip ? What was he thinking
about? As in the morning, he saw the trees pass by, the
thatched roofs, the cultivated fields, and the dissolving views of
the country which change at every turn of the road. Such
scenes are sometimes sufficient for the soul, and almost do away
with thought. To see a thousand objects for the first and for
the last time, what can be deeper and more melancholy? To
travel is to be born and to die at every instant. It may be
that in the most shadowy portion of his mind, he was drawing
a comparison between these changing horizons and human
existence. All the facts of life are perpetually in flight before
us. Darkness and light alternate with each other. After a
flash, an eclipse ; we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands
to seize what is passing ; every event is a turn of the road ; and
all at once we are old. We feel a slight shock, all is black, we
distinguish a dark door, this gloomy horse of life which was
carrying us stops, and we see a veiled and unknown form that
turns him out into the darkness.

Twilight was falling just as the children coming out of school
beheld our traveller entering Tinques. It is true that the days
were still short. He did not stop at Tinques. As he was
driving out of the village, a countryman who was repairing the
road, raised his head and said :

" Your horse is very tired."

The poor beast, in fact, was not going faster than a walk.

" Are you going to Arras? " added the countryman.

" Yes."

" If you go at this rate, you won't get there very early."

He stopped his horse and asked the countryman :

" How far is it from here to Arras? "

" Near seven long leagues."

" How is that? the post route only counts five and a quarter."

" Ah ! " replied the workman, " then you don't know that
the road is being repaired. You will find it cut off a quarter of
an hour from here. There's no means of going further."

" Indeed ! "

" You will take the left, the road that leads to Carency, and
cross the river; when you are at Camblin, you will turn to the
right; that is the road from Mont Saint-Eloy to Arras."

" But it is night, I shall lose my way."

" You are not of these parts? "

240 Lcs Miserables

" No."

" Besides, they are all cross-roads."

" Stop, monsieur," the countryman continued, " do you want
I should give you some advice ? Your horse is tired ; go back
to Tinques. There is a good house there. Sleep there. You
can go on to Arras to-morrow."

" I must be there to-night — this evening? "

" That is another thing. Then go back all the same to that
inn, and take an extra horse. The boy that will go with the
horse will guide you through the cross-roads."

He followed the countryman's advice, retraced his steps, and
a half hour afterwards he again passed the same place, but at
a full trot, with a good extra horse. A stable-boy, who called
himself a postillion, was sitting upon the shaft of the carriole.

He felt, however, that he was losing time. It was now quite
dark.

They were driving through a cross-path. The road became
frightful. The carriole tumbled from one rut to the other. He
said to the postillion:

" Keep up a trot, and double drink-money."

In one of the jolts the whiffle-tree broke.

"Monsieur," said the postillion, "the whiffle-tree is broken;
I do not know how to harness my horse now, this road is very
bad at night, if you will come back and stop at Tinques, we
can be at Arras early to-morrow morning."

He answered : " Have you a piece of string and a knife ? "

" Yes, monsieur."

He cut off the limb of a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it.

This was another loss of twenty minutes; but they started
off at a gallop.

The plain was dark. A low fog, thick and black, was creeping
over the hill-tops and floating away like smoke. There were
glimmering flashes from the clouds. A strong wind, which came
from the sea, made a sound all around the horizon like the
moving of furniture. Everything that he caught a glimpse of
had an attitude of terror. How all things shudder under the
terrible breath of night.

The cold penetrated him. He had not eaten since the evening
before. He recalled vaguely to mind his other night adventure

in the great plain near D , eight years before ; and it seemed

yesterday Kto him.

Some distant bell struck the hour. He asked the boy :

"What o'clock is that?"

Fantine 241

" Seven o'clock, monsieur; we shall be in Arras at eight. We
have only three leagues."

At this moment he thought for the first time, and it seemed
strange that it had not occurred to him sooner ; that perhaps all
the trouble he was taking might be useless; that he did not
even know the hour of the trial; that he should at least have
informed himself of that; that it was foolish to be going on at
this rate, without knowing whether it would be of any use.
Then he figured out some calculations in his mind : that ordin-
arily the sessions of the courts of assize began at nine o'clock
in the morning; that this case would not occupy much time;
this apple-stealing would be very short; that there would be
nothing but a question of identity; four or five witnesses and
some little to be said by the lawyers; that he would get there
after it was all over !

The postillion whipped up the horses. They had crossed the
river, and left Mont Saint-Eloy behind them*

The night grew darker and darker.

SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF

MEANWHILE, at that very moment, Fantine was in ecstasies.

She had passed a very bad night. Cough frightful, fever
redoubled; she had bad dreams. In the morning, when the
doctor came, she was delirious. He appeared to be alarmed,
and asked to be informed as soon as Monsieur Madeleine came.

All the morning she was low-spirited, spoke little and was
making folds in the sheets, murmuring in a low voice over some
calculations which appeared to be calculations of distances.
Her eyes were hollow and fixed. The light seemed almost gone
out, but then, at moments, they would be lighted up and sparkle
like stars. It seems as though at the approach of a certain
dark hour, the light of heaven infills those who are leaving the
light of earth.

Whenever Sister Simplice asked her how she was, she
answered invariably: "Well. I would like to see Monsieur
Madeleine."

A few months earlier, when Fantine had lost the last of her
modesty, her last shame and her last happiness, she was the
shadow of herself; now she was the spectre of herself . Physical

242 Lcs Miserables

suffering had completed the work of moral suffering. This
creature of twenty-five years had a wrinkled forehead, flabby
cheeks, pinched nostrils, shrivelled gums, a leaden complexion,
a bony neck, protruding collar-bones, skinny limbs, an earthy
skin, and her fair hair was mixed with grey. Alas! how
sickness extemporises old age.

At noon the doctor came again, left a few prescriptions,
inquired if the mayor had been at the infirmary, and shook his
head.

Monsieur Madeleine usually came at three o'clock to see the
sick woman. As exactitude was kindness, he was exact.

About half-past two, Fantine began to be agitated. In the
space of twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times :
" My sister, what time is it? "

The clock struck three. At the third stroke, Fantine rose up
in bed — ordinarily she could hardly turn herself — she joined her
two shrunken and yellow hands in a sort of convulsive clasp,
and the nun heard from her one of those deep sighs which seem
to uplift a great weight. Then Fantine turned and looked
towards the door.

Nobody came in; the door did not open.

She sat so for a quarter of an hour, her eyes fixed upon the
door, motionless, and as if holding her breath. The sister dared
not speak. The church clock struck the quarter. Fantine fell
back upon her pillow.

She said nothing, and again began to make folds in the sheet.

A half-hour passed, then an hour, but no one came; every
time the clock struck, Fantine rose and looked towards the
door, then she fell back.

Her thought could be clearly seen, but she pronounced no
name, she did not complain, she found no fault. She only
coughed mournfully. One would have said that something dark
was settling down upon her. She was livid, and her lips were
blue. She smiled at times.

The clock struck five. Then the sister heard her speak very
low and gently: " But since I am going away to-morrow, he
does wrong not to come to-day ! "

Sister Simplice herself was surprised at Monsieur Madeleine's
delay.

Meanwhile, Fantine was looking at the canopy of her bed.
She seemed to be seeking to recall something to her mind. All
at once she began to sing in a voice as feeble as a whisper.
The nun listened. This is what Fantine sang:

Fantine 243

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses
En nous promenant le long des faubourgs.

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.

La vierge Marie aupres de mon poele

Est venue hier en manteau brode;

Et m'a dit: — Void, cach6 sous mon voile,

Le petit qu'un jour tu m'as demand6.

Courez a la ville, ayez de la toile,

Achetez du fil, achetez un d6.

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses
En nous promenant le long des faubourgs.

Bonne sainte Vierge, aupres de mon poele
J'ai mis un berceau de rubans orn6;
Dieu me donnerait sa plus belle etoile,
J'aime mieux 1' enfant que tu m'as donng.
Madame, que faire avec cette toile?
Faites en trousseau pour mon nouveau-n6.
Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
Les bleuets sont bleus. j'aime mes amours.

Layez cette toile. — Oil ? — Dans la riviere.

Faites-en, sans rien g£ter ni salir,

Une belle jupe avec sa brassiere

Que je veux broder et de fleurs emplir.

L'enfant n'est plus la, madame, qu'en faire
Faites-en un drap pour m'ensevelir.

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses
En nous promenant le long de faubourgs.
Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.1

1 We will buy very pretty things,
A walking through the faubourgs.

Violets are blue, roses are red,
Violets are blue, I love my loves.

The Virgin Mary to my bed
Came yesterday in broidered cloak
And told me: " Here hidden in my veil
Is the babe that once you asked of me."
" Run to the town, get linen,
Buy thread, buy a thimble."

We will buy very pretty things,

A walking through the faubourgs.

Good holy Virgin, by my bed

I have put a cradle draped with ribbons;

Were God to give me his fairest star,

I should love the babe thou hast given me more.

" Madame, what shall be done with this linen?"

"Make a trousseau for my new-born."

Violets are blue, roses are red,

Violets are blue, I love my loves.

244 Les Miserablcs

This was an old nursery song with which she once used to
sing her little Cosette to sleep, and which had not occurred to
her mind for the five years since she had had her child with
her. She sang it in a voice so sad, and to an air so sweet, that
it could not but draw tears even from a nun. The sister,
accustomed to austerity as she was, felt a drop upon her
cheek.

The clock struck six. Fantine did not appear to hear. She
seemed no longer to pay attention to anything around her.

Sister Simplice sent a girl to inquire of the portress of the
factory if the mayor had come in, and if he would not very
soon come to the infirmary. The girl returned in a few minutes.

Fantine was still motionless, and appeared to be absorbed in
her own thoughts.

The servant related in a whisper to Sister Simplice that the
mayor had gone away that morning before six o'clock in a little
tilbury drawn by a white horse, cold as the weather was; that
he went alone, without even a driver, that no one knew the
road he had taken, that some said he had been seen to turn off
by the road to Arras, that others were sure they had met him
on the road to Paris. That when he went away he seemed, as
usual, very kind, and that he simply said to the portress that
he need not be expected that night.

While the two women were whispering, with their backs
turned towards Fantine's bed, the sister questioning, the servant
conjecturing, Fantine, with that feverish vivacity of certain
organic diseases, which unites the free movement of health with
the frightful exhaustion of death, had risen to her knees on the
bed, her shrivelled hands resting on the bolster, and with her
head passing through the opening of the curtains, she listened.
AH at once she exclaimed :

" You are talking there of Monsieur Madeleine ! why do you
talk so low? what has he done? why does he not come? "

Her voice was so harsh and rough that the two women

Wash this linen. " Where? " In the river.

Make of it, without spoiling or soiling,

A pretty skirt, a very long skirt,

Which I will broider and fill with flowers.

" The child is gone, madame, what more ? "

" Make of it a shroud to bury me."

We will buy very pretty things
A walking in the faubourgs.
Violets are blue, roses are red.
Violets are blue, I love my loves.

Famine 245

thought they heard the voice of a man; they turned towards
her affrighted.

" Why don't you answer? " cried Fantine.

The servant stammered out:

" The portress told me that he could not come to-day."

" My child," said the sister, " be calm, lie down again."

Fantine, without changing her attitude, resumed with a loud
voice, and in a tone at once piercing and imperious :

" He cannot come. Why not? You know the reason. You
were whispering it there between you. I want to know."

The servant whispered quickly in the nun's ear: "Answer
that he is busy with the City Council."

Sister Simplice reddened slightly ; it was a lie that the servant
had proposed to her. On the other hand, it did seem to her
that to tell the truth to the sick woman would doubtless be a
terrible blow, and that it was dangerous in the state in which
Fantine was. This blush did not last long. The sister turned
her calm, sad eye upon Fantine, and said :

" The mayor has gone away."

Fantine sprang up and sat upon her feet. Her eyes sparkled.
A marvellous joy spread over that mournful face^

" Gone away ! " she exclaimed. " He has gone for Cosette ! "

Then she stretched her hands towards heaven, and her whole
countenance became ineffable. Her lips moved; she was pray-
ing in a whisper.

When her prayer was ended: " My sister," said she, " I am
quite willing to lie down again, I will do whatever you wish; I
was naughty just now, pardon me for having talked so loud; it
is very bad to talk loud ; I know it, my good sister, but see how
happy I am. God is kind, Monsieur Madeleine is good; just
think of it, that he has gone to Montfermeil for my little Cosette."

She lay down again, helped the nun to arrange the pillow,
and kissed a little silver cross which she wore at her neck, and
which Sister Simplice had given her.

" My child," said the sister, " try to rest now, and do not
talk any more."

Fantine took the sister's hand between hers; they were
moist; the sister was pained to feel it.

" He started this morning for Paris. Indeed he need not even
go through Paris. Montfermeil is a little to the left in coming.
You remember what he said yesterday, when I spoke to him
about Cosette : Very soon, very soon I This is a surprise he has
for me. You know he had me sign a letter to take her away

246

Les Miserables

from the Thenardiers. They will have nothing to say, will they ?
They will give up Cosette. Because they have their pay. The
authorities would not let them keep a child when they are paid.
My sister, do not make signs to me that I must not talk. I am
very happy, I am doing very well. I have no pain at all, I am
going to see Cosette again, I am hungry even. For almost five
years I have not seen her. You do not, you cannot imagine
what a hold children have upon you ! And then she will be so
handsome, you will see ! If you knew, she has such pretty little
rosy fingers! First, she will have very beautiful hands. At a
year old she had ridiculous hands, — so! She must be large
now. She is seven years old. She is a little lady. I call her
Cosette, but her name is Euphrasie. Now, this morning I was
looking at the dust on the mantel, and I had an idea that I
should see Cosette again very soon! Oh, dear! how wrong it
is to be years without seeing one's children! We ought to
remember that life is not eternal! Oh! how good it is in the
mayor to go — true, it is very cold ! He had his cloak, at least !
He will be here to-morrow, will he not? That will make
to-morrow a fete. To-morrow morning, my sister, you will
remind me to put on my little lace cap. Montfermeil is a
country place. I made the trip on foot once. It was a long
way for me. But the diligences go very fast. He will be here
to-morrow with Cosette! How far is it from here to Mont-
fermeil? "

The sister, who had no idea of the distance, answered: " Ohl
I feel sure that he will be here to-morrow."

"To-morrow! to-morrow!" said Fantine, "I shall see
Cosette to-morrow! See, good Sister of God, I am well now.
I am wild; I would dance, if anybody wanted me to."

One who had seen her a quarter of an hour before could not
have understood this. Now she was all rosy; she talked in a
lively, natural tone; her whole face was only a smile. At
times jshe laughed while whispering to herself. A mother's joy
is almost like a child's.

" Well," resumed the nun, " now you are happy, obey me —
do not talk any more."

Fan tine laid her head upon the pillow, and said in a low voice :
" Yes, lie down again; be prudent now that you are going to
have your child. Sister Simplice is right. All here are right."

And then, without moving, or turning her head, she began to
look all about with her eyes wide open and a joyous air, and she
said nothing more.

Fantine 247

The sister closed the curtains, hoping that she would sleep.

Between seven and eight o'clock the doctor came. Hearing
no sound, he supposed that Fantine was asleep, went in softly,
and approached the bed on tiptoe. He drew the curtains aside,
and by the glimmer of the twilight he saw Fantine's large calm
eyes looking at him.

She said to him: " Monsieur, you will let her lie by my side
in a little bed, won't you? "

The doctor thought she was delirious. She added:

" Look, there is just room."

The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, who explained the
matter to him, that Monsieur Madeleine was absent for a day
or two, and that, not being certain, they had not thought it best
to undeceive the sick woman, who believed the mayor had gone
to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that she had
guessed aright. The doctor approved of this.

He returned to Fantine's bed again, and she continued:

" Then you see, in the morning, when she wakes, I can say
good morning to the poor kitten; and at night, when I am
awake, I can hear her sleep. Her little breathing is so sweet
it will do me good."

" Give me your hand," said the doctor.

She reached out her hand, and exclaimed with a laugh:

" Oh, stop! Indeed, it is true you don't know! but I am
cured. Cosette is coming to-morrow."

The doctor was surprised. She was better. Her languor
was less. Her pulse was stronger. A sort of new life was all
at once reanimating this poor exhausted being.

" Doctor," she continued, " has the sister told you that
Monsieur the Mayor has gone for the little thing? "

The doctor recommended silence, and that she should avoid
all painful emotion. He prescribed an infusion of pure quinine,
and, in case the fever should return in the night, a soothing
potion. As he was going away he said to the sister: " She is
better. If by good fortune the mayor should really come back
to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are such astonish-
ing crises; we have seen great joy instantly cure diseases; I am
well aware that this is an organic disease, and far advanced, but
this is all such a mystery ! We shall save her perhaps ! "

248 Les Miserables

VII

THE TRAVELLER ARRIVES AND PROVIDES FOR HIS
RETURN

IT was nearly eight o'clock in the evening when the carriole
which we left on the road drove into the yard of the Hotel de la
Poste at Arras. The man whom we have followed thus far,
got out, answered the hospitalities of the inn's people with an
absent-minded air, sent back the extra horse, and took the
little white one to the stable himself; then he opened the door
of a billiard-room on the first floor, took a seat, and leaned his
elbows on the table. He had spent fourteen hours in this trip,
which he expected to make in six. He did himself the justice
to feel that it was not his fault; but at bottom he was not sorry
for it.

The landlady entered.

" Will monsieur have a bed? will monsieur have supper? "

He shook his head.

" The stable-boy says that monsieur's horse is very tired! "

Here he broke silence.

" Is not the horse able to start again to-morrow morning? "

"Oh! monsieur! he needs at least two days' rest."

He asked:

" Is not the Bureau of the Post here? "

" Yes, sir."

The hostess led him to the Bureau; he showed his passport
and inquired if there were an opportunity to return that very

night to M sur M by the mail coach; only one seat was

vacant, that by the side of the driver; he retained it and paid
for .it. " Monsieur," said the booking clerk, " don't fail to be
here/eady to start at precisely one o'clock in the morning."

This done, he left the hotel and began to walk in the city.

He was not acquainted in Arras, the streets were dark, and he
went haphazard. Nevertheless he seemed to refrain obstinately
from asking his way. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and
found himself in a labyrinth of narrow streets, where he was
soon lost. A citizen came along with a lantern. After some
hesitation, he determined to speak to this man, but not until he
had looked before and behind, as if he were afraid that somebody
might overhear the question he was about to ask.

Fantinc 249

" Monsieur," said he, " the court house, if you please? "

" You are not a resident of the city, monsieur," answered the
citizen, who was an old man, " well, follow me, I am going right
by the court house, that is to say, the city hall. For they are
repairing the court house just now, and the courts are holding
their sessions at the city hall, temporarily."

" Is it there," asked he, " that the assizes are held? "

" Certainly, monsieur; you see, what is the city hall to-day
was the bishop's palace before the revolution. Monsieur de
Conzie, who was bishop in 'eighty-two, had a large hall built.
The court is held in that hall."

As they walked along, the citizen said to him:

" If monsieur wishes to see a trial, he is rather late. Ordin-
arily the sessions close at six o'clock."

However, when they reached the great square, the citizen
showed him four long lighted windows on the front of a vast
dark building.

" Faith, monsieur, you are in time, you are fortunate. Do
you see those four windows? that is the court of assizes.
There is a light there. Then they have not finished. The case
must have been prolonged and they are having an evening
session. Are you interested in this case? Is it a criminal trial ?
Are you a witness ? "

He answered :

" I have no business; I only wish to speak to a lawyer."

" That's another thing," said the citizen. " Stop, monsieur,
here is the door. The doorkeeper is up there. You have only
to go up the grand stairway."

He followed the citizen's instructions, and in a few minutes
found himself in a hall where there were many people, and
scattered groups of lawyers in their robes whispering here and
there.

It is always a chilling sight to see these gatherings of men
clothed in black, talking among themselves in a low voice on
the threshold of the chamber of justice.

It is rare that charity and pity can be found in their words.
What are oftenest heard are sentences pronounced in advance.
All these groups seem to the observer, who passes musingly by,
like so many gloomy hives where buzzing spirits are building in
common all sorts of dark structures.

This hall, which, though spacious, was lighted by a single
lamp, was an ancient hall of the Episcopal palace, and served
as a waiting-room. A double folding door, which was now

250 Les Miserables

closed, separated it from the large room in which the court of
assizes was in session.

The obscurity was such that he felt no fear in addressing the
first lawyer whom he met.

" Monsieur/' said he, " how are they getting along? "

" It is finished," said the lawyer.

"Finished!"

The word was repeated in such a tone that the lawyer turned
around.

" Pardon me, monsieur, you are a relative, perhaps? "

" No. I know no one here. And was there a sentence? "

" Of course. It was hardly possible for it to be otherwise."

"To hard labour?"

" For life."

He continued in a voice so weak that it could hardly be heard :

" The identity was established, then ? "

" What identity ? " responded the lawyer. " There was no
identity to be established. It was a simple affair. This woman
had killed her child, the infanticide was proven, the jury were
not satisfied that there was any premeditation; she was
sentenced for life."

" It is a woman, then? " said he.

" Certainly. The Limosin girl. What else are you speaking
of?"

" Nothing, but if it is finished, why is the hall still lighted up ? "

" That is for the other case, which commenced nearly two
hours ago."

" What other case ? "

" Oh ! that is a clear one also. It is a sort of a thief, a second
offender, a galley slave, a case of robbery. I forget his name.
He looks like a bandit. Were it for nothing but having such a
face, I would send him to the galleys."

" Monsieur," asked he, " is there any means of getting into
the hall?"

" I think not, really. There is, a great crowd. However, they
are taking a recess. Some people have come out, and when the
session is resumed, you can try."

" How do you get in ? "

" Through that large door."

The lawyer left him. In a few moments, he had undergone,
almost at the same time, almost together, all possible emotions.
The words of this indifferent man had alternately pierced his
heart like icicles and like flames of fire. When he learned that

Fantinc 251

it was not concluded, he drew breath; but he could not have
told whether what he felt was satisfaction or pain.

He approached several groups and listened to their talk.
The calendar of the term being very heavy, the judge had set
down two short, simple cases for that day. They had begun
with the infanticide, and now were on the convict, the second
offender, the " old stager." This man had stolen some apples,
but that did no't appear to be very well proven; what was
proven, was that he had been in the galleys at Toulon. This
was what ruined his case. The examination of the man had been
finished, and the testimony of the witnesses had been taken;
but there yet remained the argument of the counsel, and the
summing up of his prosecuting attorney; it would hardly be
finished before midnight. The man would probably be con-
demned; the prosecuting attorney was very good, and never
failed with his prisoners ; he was a fellow of talent, who wrote
poetry.

An officer stood near the door which opened into the court-
room. He asked this officer:

" Monsieur, will the door be opened soon ? "

" It will not be opened," said the officer.

" How ! it will not be opened when the session is resumed ?
is there not a recess? "

" The session has just been resumed," answered the officer,
" but the door will not be opened again."

"Why not?"

" Because the hall is full."

" What! there are no more seats? "

" Not a single one. The door is closed. No one can enter."

The officer added, after a silence : " There are indeed two or
three places still behind Monsieur the Judge, but Monsieur the
Judge admits none but public functionaries to them."

So saying, the officer turned his back.

He retired with his head bowed down, crossed the ante-
chamber, and walked slowly down the staircase, seeming to
hesitate at every step. It is probable that he was holding
counsel with himself. The violent combat that had been going
on within him since the previous evening was not finished ; and,
every moment, he fell upon some new turn. When he reached
the turn of the stairway, he leaned against the railing and
folded his arms. Suddenly he opened his coat, drew out his
pocket-book, took out a pencil, tore out a sheet, and wrote
rapidly upon that sheet by t')e glimmering light, this line:

252 Les Miserables

Monsieur Madeleine, Mayor of M sur M ; then he

went up the stairs again rapidly, passed through the crowd,
walked straight to the officer, handed him the paper, and said
to him with authority: " Carry that to Monsieur the Judge."
The officer took the paper, cast his eye upon it, and obeyed.

VIII
ADMISSION BY FAVOUR

WITHOUT himself suspecting it, the Mayor of M sur M

had a certain celebrity. For seven years the reputation of his
virtue had been extending throughout Bas-Boulonnais ; it had
finally crossed the boundaries of the little county, and had
spread into the two or three neighbouring departments. Besides
the considerable service that he had rendered to the chief town
by reviving the manufacture of jet-work, there was not one of

the hundred and forty-one communes of the district of M

sur M which was not indebted to him for some benefit. He

had even in case of need aided and quickened the business of
the other districts. Thus he had, in time of need, sustained
with his credit and with his own funds the tulle factory at
Boulogne, the flax-spinning factory at Prevent, and the linen
factory at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the name of
Monsieur Madeleine was spoken with veneration. Arras and
Douai envied the lucky little city of M sur M its mayor.

The Judge of the Royal Court of Douai, who was holding this
term of the assizes at Arras, was familiar, as well as everybody
else, with this name so profoundly and so universally honoured.
When the officer, quietly opening the door which led from the
counsel chamber to the court room, bent behind the judge's
chair and handed him the paper, on which was written the line we
have just read, adding: " This gentleman desires to witness the
trial , " the judge made a hast^ movement of deference, seized
a pen, wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper and handed
it back to the officer, saying to him: " Let him enter."

The unhappy man, whose history we are relating, had re-
mained near the door of the hall, in the same place and the same
attitude as when the officer left him. He heard, through his
thoughts, some one saying to him: " Will monsieur do me the
honour to follow me?" It was the same officer who had
turned his back upon him the minute before, and who now

Fantine 253

bowed to the earth before him. The officer at the same time
handed him the paper. He unfolded it, and, as he happened
to be near the lamp, he could read :

" The Judge of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to
Monsieur Madeleine."

He crushed the paper in his hands, as if those few words had
left some strange and bitter taste behind.

He followed the officer.

In a few minutes he found himself alone in a kind of panelled
cabinet, of a severe appearance, lighted by two wax candles
placed upon a table covered with green cloth. The last words
of the officer who had left him still rang in his ear: " Monsieur,
you are now in the counsel chamber ; you have but to turn the
brass knob of that door and you will find yourself in the court
room, behind the judge's chair." These words were associated
in his thoughts with a vague remembrance of the narrow
corridors and dark stairways through which he had just passed.

The officer had left him alone. The decisive moment had
arrived. He endeavoured to collect his thoughts, but did not
succeed. At those hours especially when we have sorest need
of grasping the sharp realities of life do the threads of thought
snap off in the brain. He was in the very place where the judges
deliberate and decide. He beheld with a stupid tranquillity
that silent and formidable room where so many existences had
been terminated, where his own name would be heard so soon,
and which his destiny was crossing at this moment. He looked
at the walls, then he looked at himself, astonished that this
could be this chamber, and that this could be he.

He had eaten nothing for more than twenty-four hours; he
was bruised by the jolting of the carriole, but he did not feel it;
it seemed to him that he felt nothing.

He examined a black frame which hung on the wall, and which
contained under glass an old autograph letter of Jean Nicolas
Pache, Mayor of Paris, and Minister, dated, doubtless by
mistake, June 9th, year II., in which Pache sent to the Commune
the list of the ministers and deputies held in arrest within their
limits. A spectator, had he seen and watched him then, would
have imagined, doubtless, that this letter appeared very remark-
able to him, for he did not take his eyes off from it, and he read
it two or three times. He was reading without paying any
attention, and without knowing what he was doing. He was
thinking of Fantine and Cosette.

Even while musing, he turned unconsciously, and his eyes

254 Les Miserables

encountered the brass knob of the door which separated him
from the hall of the assizes. He had almost forgotten that
door. His countenance, at first calm, now fell. His eyes were
fixed on that brass knob, then became set and wild and little by
little filled with dismay. Drops of sweat started out from his
head, and rolled down over his temples.

At one moment he made, with a kind of authority united to
rebellion, that indescribable gesture which means and which
so well says : Well I who is there to compel me 1 Then he turned
quickly, saw before him the door by which he had entered, went
to it, opened it, and went out. He was no longer in that room;
he was outside, in a corridor, a long, narrow corridor, cut up
with steps and side-doors, making all sorts of angles, lighted
here and there by lamps hung on the wall similar to nurse-
lamps for the sick; it was the corridor by which he had come.
He drew breath and listened; no sound behind him, no sound
before him; he ran as if he were pursued.

When he had doubled several of the turns of this passage, he
listened again. There was still the same silence and the same
shadow about him. He was out of breath, he tottered, he
leaned against the wall. The stone was cold; the sweat was
icy upon his forehead; he roused himself with a shudder.

Then and there, alone, standing in that obscurity, trembling
with cold and, perhaps, with something else, he reflected.

He had reflected all night, he had reflected all day; he now
heard but one voice within him, which said : " Alas ! "

A quarter of an hour thus rolled away. Finally, he bowed
his head, sighed with anguish, let his arms fall, and retraced his
steps. He walked slowly and as if overwhelmed. It seemed
as if he had been caught in his flight and brought back.

He entered the counsel chamber again. The first thing that
he saw was the handle of the door. That handle, round and of
polished brass, shone out before him like an ominous star. He
looked at it as a lamb might look at the eye of a tiger.

His eyes could not move from it.

From time to time, he took another step towards the door.

Had he listened, he would have heard, as a kind of confused
murmur, the noise of the neighbouring hall; but he did not
listen and he did not hear.

Suddenly, without himself knowing how, he found himself
near the door, he seized the knob convulsively ; the door opened.

He was in the court room.

Fantinc 255

A PLACE FOR ARRIVING AT CONVICTIONS

HE took a step, closed the door behind him, mechanically, and
remained standing, noting what he saw.

It was a large hall, dimly lighted, and noisy and silent by
turns, where all the machinery of a criminal trial was exhibited,
with its petty, yet solemn gravity, before the multitude.

At one end of the hall, that at which he found himself, heed-
less judges, in threadbare robes, were biting their finger-nails,
or closing their eyelids ; at the other end was a ragged rabble ;
there were lawyers in all sorts of attitudes; soldiers with honest
and hard faces; old, stained wainscoting, a dirty ceiling, tables
covered with serge, which was more nearly yellow than green ;
doors blackened by finger-marks; tavern lamps, giving more
smoke than light, on nails in the panelling; candles, in brass
candlesticks, on the tables ; everywhere obscurity, unsightliness,
and gloom; and from all this there arose an austere and august
impression; for men felt therein the presence of that great
human thing which is called law, and that great divine thing
which is called justice.

No man in this multitude paid any attention to him. All
eyes converged on a single point, a wooden bench placed against
a little door, along the wall at the left hand of the judge. Upon
this bench, which was lighted by several candles, was a man
between two gendarmes.

This was the man.

He did not look for him, he saw him. His eyes went towards
him naturally, as if they had known in advance where he was.

He thought he saw himself, older, doubtless, not precisely
the same in features, but alike in attitude and appearance, with
that bristling hair, with those wild and restless eyeballs, with

that blouse — just as he was on the day he entered D , full

of hatred, and concealing in his soul that hideous hoard of fright-
ful thoughts which he had spent nineteen years in gathering
upon the floor of the galleys.

He said to himself, with a shudder : " Great God ! shall I
again come to this? "

This being appeared at least sixty years old. There was
something indescribably rough, stupid, and terrified in his
appearance.

256

Les Miserables

At the sound of the door, people had stood aside to make room.
The judge had turned his head, and supposing the person who

entered to be the mayor of M sur M r, greeted him with

a bow. The prosecuting attorney, who had seen Madeleine at

M sur M , whither he had been called more than once

by the duties of his office, recognised him and bowed likewise.
He scarcely perceived them. He gazed about him, a prey to a
sort of hallucination.

Judges, clerk, gendarmes, a throng of heads, cruelly curious —
he had seen all these once before, twenty-seven years ago. He
had fallen again upon these fearful things; they were before
him, they moved, they had being; it was no longer an effort of
his memory, a mirage of his fancy, but real gendarmes and real
judges, a real throng, and real men of flesh and bone. It was
done; he saw reappearing and living again around him, with
all the frightfulness of reality, the monstrous visions of the past.

All this was yawning before him.

Stricken with horror, he closed his eyes, and exclaimed from
the depths of his soul : "Never!"

And by a tragic sport of destiny, which was agitating all his
ideas and rendering him almost insane, it was another self
before him. This man on trial was called by all around him,
Jean Valjean !

He had before his eyes an unheard-of vision, a sort of repre-
sentation of the most horrible moment of his life, played by his
shadow.

All, everything was there — the same paraphernalia, the same
hour of the night — almost the same faces, judge and assistant
judges, soldiers and spectators. But above the head of the
judge was a crucifix, a thing which did not appear in court
rooms at the time of his sentence. When he was tried, God
was not there.

A chair was behind him; he sank into it, terrified at the idea
that he might be observed. When seated, he took advantage
of a pile of papers on the judges' desk to hide his face from the
whole room. He could now see without being seen. He
entered fully into the spirit of the reality; by degrees he re-
covered his composure, and arrived at that degree of calmness
at which it is possible to listen.

Monsieur Bamatabois was one of the jurors.

He looked for Javert, but did not see him. The witnesses'
seat was hidden from him by the clerk's table. And then, as
we have just said, the hall was very dimly lighted.

Fantine 257

At the moment of his entrance, the counsel for the prisoner
was finishing his plea. The attention of all was excited to the
highest degree; the trial had been in progress for three hours.
During these three hours,, the spectators had seen a man, an
unknown, wretched being, thoroughly stupid or thoroughly
artful, gradually bending beneath the weight of a terrible prob-
ability. This man, as is already known, was a vagrant who had
been found in a field, carrying off a branch, laden with ripe
apples, which had been broken from a tree in a neighbouring
close called the Pierron inclosure. Who was this man? An
examination had been held, witnesses had been heard, they had
been unanimous, light had been elicited from every portion of
the trial. The prosecution said : " We have here not merely a
fruit thief, a marauder; we have here, in our hands, a bandit,
an outlaw who has broken his ban, an old convict, a most
dangerous wretch, a malefactor, called Jean Valjean, of whom
justice has been long in pursuit, and who, eight years ago, on
leaving the galleys at Toulon, committed a highway robbery,
with force and arms, upon the person of a youth of Savoy, Petit
Gervais by name, a crime which is specified in Article 383 of the
Penal Code, and for which we reserve the right of further pro-
secution when his identity shall be judicially established. He
has now committed a new theft. It is a case of second offence.
Convict him for the new crime ; he will be tried hereafter for the
previous one." Before this accusation, before the unanimity
of the witnesses, the principal emotion evinced by the accused
was astonishment. He made gestures and signs which signified
denial, or he gazed at the ceiling. He spoke with difficulty, and
answered with embarrassment, but from head to foot, his whole
person denied the charge. He seemed like an idiot in the
presence of all these intellects ranged in battle around him, and
like a stranger in the midst of this society by whom he had been
seized. Nevertheless, a most threatening future awaited him;
probabilities increased every moment; and every spectator
was looking with more anxiety than himself for the calamitous
sentence which seemed to be hanging over his head with ever
increasing surety. One contingency even gave a glimpse of the
possibility, beyond the galleys, of a capital penalty should his
identity be established, and the Petit Gervais affair result in
his conviction. Who was this man ? What was the nature of
his apathy? Was it imbecility or artifice? Did he know too
much or nothing at all? These were questions upon which the
spectators took sides, and which seemed to affect the jury.
i i

258 Les Miserables

There was something fearful and something mysterious in the
trial; the drama was not merely gloomy, but it was obscure.

The counsel for the defence had made a very good plea in that
provincial language which long constituted the eloquence of the
bar, and which was formerly employed by all lawyers, at Paris
as well as at Romorantin or Montbrison, but which, having now
become classic, is used by few except the official orators of the
bar, to whom it is suited by its solemn rotundity and majestic
periods; a language in which husband and wife are called
spouses, Paris, the centre of arts and civilisation, the king, the
monarch, a bishop, a holy pontiff, the prosecuting attorney, the
eloquent interpreter of the vengeance of the law, arguments, the
accents which we have fust heard, the time of Louis XIV., the
illustrious age, a theatre, the temple of Melpomene, the reigning
family, the august blood of our kings, a concert, a musical
solemnity, the general in command, the illustrious warrior who,
etc., students of theology, those tender Levites, mistakes imputed
to newspapers, the imposture which distils its venom into the
columns of these organs, etc., etc. The counsel for the defence
had begun by expatiating on the theft of the apples, — a thing
ill suited to a lofty style ; but Benign Bossuet himself was once
compelled to make allusion to a hen in the midst of a funeral
oration, and acquitted himself with dignity. The counsel estab-
lished that the theft of the apples was not in fact proved. His
client, whom in his character of counsel he persisted in calling
Champmathieu, had not been seen to scale the wall or break off
the branch. He had been arrested in possession of this branch
(which the counsel preferred to call bough}; but he said that he
had found it on the ground. Where was the proof to the con-
trary? Undoubtedly this branch had been broken and carried
off after the scaling of the wall, then thrown away by the
alarmed marauder; undoubtedly, there had been a thief. — But
what evidence was there that this thief was Champmathieu?
One single thing. That he was formerly a convict. The
counsel would not deny that this fact unfortunately appeared
to be fully proved ; the defendant had resided at Faverolles ; the
defendant had been a primer, the name of Champmathieu might
well have had its origin in that of Jean Mathieu ; all this was true,
and finally, four witnesses had positively and without hesitation
identified Champmathieu as the galley slave, Jean Valjean;
to these circumstances and this testimony the counsel could
oppose nothing but the denial of his client, an interested denial ;
but even supposing him to be the convict Jean Valjean, did this

Fantine 259

prove that he had stolen the apples? that was a presumption
at most, not a proof. The accused, it was true, and the counsel
" in good faith " must admit it, had adopted " a mistaken
system of defence." He had persisted in denying everything,
both the theft and the fact that he had been a convict. An
avowal on the latter point would have been better certainly,
and would have secured to him the indulgence of the judges;
the counsel had advised him to this course, but the defendant
had obstinately refused, expecting probably to escape punish-
ment entirely, by admitting nothing. It was a mistake, but
must not the poverty of his intellect be taken into consideration ?
The man was evidently imbecile. Long suffering in the galleys,
long suffering out of the galleys, had brutalised him, etc., etc. ; if
he made a bad defence, was this a reason for convicting him?
As to the Petit Gervais affair, the counsel had nothing to say, it
was not in the case. He concluded by entreating the jury and
court, if the identity of Jean Valjean appeared evident to them,
to apply to him the police penalties prescribed for the breaking
of ban, and not the fearful punishment decreed to the convict
found guilty of a second offence.

The prosecuting attorney replied to the counsel for the
defence. He was violent and flowery, like most prosecuting
attorneys.

He complimented the counsel for his " frankness," of which
he shrewdly took advantage. He attacked the accused through
all the concessions which his counsel had made. The counsel
seemed to admit that the accused was Jean Valjean. He
accepted the admission. This man then was Jean Valjean.
This fact was conceded to the prosecution, and could be no longer
contested. Here, by an adroit autonomasia, going back to the
sources and causes of crime, the prosecuting attorney thundered
against the immorality of the romantic school — then in its
dawn, under the name of the Satanic school, conferred upon it
by the critics of the Quotidienne and the Oriftamme ; and he
attributed, not without plausibility, to the influence of this
perverse literature, the crime of Champmathieu, or rather of
Jean Valjean. These considerations exhausted, he passed to
Jean Valjean himself. Who was Jean Valjean? Description
of Jean Valjean: a monster vomited, etc. The model of all
such descriptions may be found in the story of TheVamene,
which as tragedy is useless, but which does great service in
judicial eloquence every day. The auditory and the jury
" shuddered." This description finished, the prosecuting

260 Les Miserables

attorney resumed with an oratorical burst, designed to excite
the enthusiasm of the Journal de la Prefecture to the highest
pitch next morning. " And it is such a man," etc. etc. A
vagabond, a mendicant, without means of existence, etc., etc.
Accustomed through his existence to criminal acts, and pro-
fiting little by his past life in the galleys, as is proved by the
crime committed upon Petit Gervais, etc., etc. It is such a
man who, found on the highway in the very act of theft, a few
paces from a wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand
the subject of his crime., denies the act in which he is caught,
denies the theft, denies the escalade, denies everything, denies
even his name, denies even his identity! Besides a hundred
other proofs, to which we will not return, he is identified by
four witnesses — Javert — the incorruptible inspector of police,
Javert — and three of his former companions in disgrace, the
convicts Brevet, Chenildieu, and Cochepaille. What has he to
oppose to this overwhelming unanimity? His denial. What
depravity ! You will do justice, gentlemen of the jury, etc., etc.
While the prosecuting attorney was speaking the accused listened
open-mouthed, with a sort of astonishment, not unmingled
with admiration. He was evidently surprised that a man could
speak so well. From time to time, at the most " forcible "
parts of the argument, at those moments when eloquence,
unable to contain itself, overflows in a stream of withering
epithets, and surrounds the prisoner like a tempest, he slowly
moved his head from right to left, and from left to right — a
sort of sad, mute protest, with which he contented himself from
the beginning of the argument. Two or three times the spec-
tators nearest him heard him say in a low tone: "This all
comes from not asking for Monsieur Baloup ! The prosecuting
attorney pointed out to the jury this air of stupidity, which was
evidently put on, and which denoted, not imbecility, but address,
artifice, and the habit of deceiving justice; and which showed
in its full light the " deep-rooted perversity " of the man. He
concluded by reserving entirely the Petit Gervais affair, and
demanding a sentence to the full extent of the law.

This was, for this offence, as will be remembered, hard labour
for life.

The counsel for the prisoner rose, commenced by compli-
menting " Monsieur, the prosecuting attorney, on his admirable
argument," then replied as best he could, but in a weaker tone;
the ground was evidently giving way under him.

Fantine 261

THE SYSTEM OF DENEGATIONS

THE time had come for closing the case. The judge commanded
the accused to rise, and put the usual question: "Have you
anything to add to your defence? "

The man, standing, and twirling in his hands a hideous cap
which he had, seemed not to hear.

The judge repeated the question.

This time the man heard, and appeared to comprehend.
He started like one awaking from sleep, cast his eyes around
him, looked at the spectators, the gendarmes, his counsel, the
jurors, and the court, placed his huge fist on the bar before him,
looked around again, and suddenly fixing his eyes upon the
prosecuting attorney, began to speak. It was like an eruption.
It seemed from the manner in which the words escaped his lips,
incoherent, impetuous, jostling each other pell-mell, as if they
were all eager to find vent at the same time. He said :

" I have this to say : That I have been a wheelwright at
Paris ; that it was at M. Baloup's too. It is a hard life to be a
wheelwright, you always work out-doors, in yards, under sheds
when you have good bosses, never in shops, because you must
have room, you see. In the winter, it is so cold that you thresh
your arms to warm them; but the bosses won't allow that;
they say it is a waste of time. It is tough work to handle iron
when there is ice on the pavements. It wears a man out quick.
You get old when you are young at this trade. A man is used
up by forty. I was fifty-three; I was sick a good deal. And
then the workmen are so bad ! When a poor fellow isn't young,
they always call you old bird, and old beast! I earned only
thirty sous a day, they paid me as little as they could — the
bosses took advantage of my age. Then I had my daughter,
who was a washerwoman at the river. She earned a little fai
herself; between us two, we got on; she had hard work toe*.
All day long up to the waist in a tub, in rain, in snow, with
wind that cuts your face when it freezes, it is all the same, the
washing must be done ; there are folks who hav'n't much linen
and are waiting for it; if you don't wash you lose your customers.
The planks are not well matched, and the water falls on you
everywhere. You get your clothes wet through and through;
that strikes in. She washed too in the laundry of the Eniants-

262 Les Miserables

Rouges, where the water comes in through pipes. There you
are not in the tub. You wash before you under the pipe, and
rinse behind you in the trough. This is under cover, and you are
not so cold. But there is a hot lye that is terrible and ruins your
eyes. She would come home at seven o'clock at night, and go to
bed right away, she was so tired. Her husband used to beat her.
She is dead. We wasn't very happy. She was a good girl;
she never went to balls, and was very quiet. I remember one
Shrove Tuesday she went to bed at eight o'clock. Look here,
I am telling the truth. You have only to ask if 'tisn't so.
Ask! how stupid I am! Paris is a gulf. Who is there that
knows Father Champmathieu ? But there is M. Baloup. Go
and see M. Baloup. I don't know what more you want of me."

The man ceased speaking, but did not sit down. He had
uttered these sentences in a loud, rapid, hoarse, harsh, and
guttural tone, with a sort of angry and savage simplicity.
Once, he stopped to bow to somebody in the crowd. The sort
of affirmations which he seemed to fling out haphazard, came
from him like hiccoughs, and he added to each the gesture of a
man chopping wood. When he had finished, the auditory
burst into laughter. He looked at them, and seeing them
laughing and not knowing why, began to laugh himself.

That was an ill omen.

The judge, considerate and kindly man, raised his voice:

He reminded " gentlemen of the jury " that M. Baloup, the
former master wheelwright by whom the prisoner said he had
been employed, had been summoned, but had not appeared.
He had become bankrupt, and could not be found. Then,
turning to the accused, he adjured him to listen to what he was
about to say, and added : " You are in a position which
demands reflection. The gravest presumptions are weighing
against you, and may lead to fatal results. Prisoner, on your
own behalf, I question you a second time, explain yourself
clearly on these two points. First, did you or did you not
climb the wall of the Pierron close, break off the branch and
steal the apples, that is to say, commit the crime of theft, with
the addition of breaking into an inclosure? Secondly, are you
or are you not the discharged convict, JeanValjean ? "

The prisoner shook his head with a knowing look, like a man
who understands perfectly, and knows what he is going to say
He opened his mouth, turned towards the presiding judge, and
said:

" In the first place "

Fantine 263

Then he looked at his cap, looked up at the ceiling, and was
silent.

" Prisoner," resumed the prosecuting attorney, in an austere
tone, " give attention. You have replied to nothing that has
been asked you. Your agitation condemns you. It is evident
that your name is not Champmathieu, but that you are the
convict, Jean Valjean, disguised under the name at first, of
Jean Mathieu, which was that of his mother; that you have
lived in Auvergne; that you were born at Faverolles, where
you were a pruner. It is evident that you have stolen ripe
apples from the Pierron close, with the addition of breaking
into the inclosure. The gentlemen of the jury will consider
this."

The accused had at last resumed his seat; he rose abruptly
when the prosecuting attorney had ended, and exclaimed:

" You are a very bad man, you, I mean. This is what I
wanted to say. I couldn't think of it first off. I never stole
anything. I am a man who don't get something to eat every day.
I was coming from Ailly, walking alone after a shower, which had
made the ground all yellow with mud, so that the ponds were
running over, and you only saw little sprigs of grass sticking
out of the sand along the road, and I found a broken branch on
the ground with apples on it; and I picked it up not knowing
what trouble it would give me. It is three months that I have
been in prison, being knocked about. More'n that, I can't tell.
You talk against me and tell me ' answer ! ' The gendarme,
who is a good fellow, nudges my elbow, and whispers, ' answer
now.' I can't explain myself; I never studied; I am a poor
man. You are all wrong not to see that I didn't steal. I
picked up off the ground things that was there. You talk
about Jean Valjean, Jean Mathieu — I don't know any such
people. They must be villagers. I have worked for Monsieur
Baloup, Boulevard de 1'Hopital. My name is Champmathieu.
You must be very sharp to tell me where I was born. I don't
know myself. Everybody can't have houses to be born in;
that would be too handy. I think my father and mother were
strollers, but I don't know. When I was a child they called me
Little One ; now, they call me Old Man. They're my Christian
names. Take them as you like. I have been in Auvergne, I
have been at Faverolles. Bless me ! can't a man have been in
Auvergne and Faverolles without having been at the galleys?
I tell you I never stole, and that I am Father Champmathieu.
I have been at Monsieur Baloup's; I lived in his house. I am

264 Les Miserablcs

tired of your everlasting nonsense. What is everybody after me
for like a mad dog ? "

The prosecuting attorney was still standing; he addressed
the judge:

" Sir, in the presence of the confused but very adroit denega-
tions of the accused, who endeavours to pass for an idiot, but
who will not succeed in it — we will prevent him — we request that it
may please you and the court to call again within the bar, the con-
victs, Brevet, Cochepaille, and Chenildieu, and police-inspector
Javert, and to submit them to a final interrogation, concerning
the identity of the accused with the convict Jean Valjean."

" I must remind the prosecuting attorney," said the presiding
judge, " that police-inspector Javert, recalled by his duties to
the chief town of a neighbouring district, left the hall, and the
city also, as soon as his testimony was taken. We granted him
this permission, with the consent of the prosecuting attorney
and the counsel of the accused."

"True," replied the prosecuting attorney; "in the absence
of Monsieur Javert, I think it a duty to recall to the gentlemen
of the jury what he said here a few hours ago. Javert is an
estimable man, who does honour to inferior but important
functions, by his rigorous and strict probity. These are the
terms in which he testified : ' I do not need even moral presump-
tions and material proofs to contradict the denials of the accused.
I recognise him perfectly. This man's name is not Champ-
mathieu; he is a convict, Jean Valjean, very hard, and much
feared. He was liberated at the expiration of his term, but
with extreme regret. He served out nineteen years at hard
labour for burglary; five or six times he attempted to escape.
Besides the Petit Gervais and Pierron robberies, I suspect him
also of a robbery committed on his highness, the late Bishop of

D . I often saw him when I was adjutant of the galley

guard at Toulon. I repeat it; I recognise him perfectly.' "

This declaration, in terms so precise, appeared to produce a
strong impression upon the public and jury. The prosecuting
attorney concluded by insisting that, in the absence of Javert,
the three witnesses, Brevet, Chenildieu, and Cochepaille, should
be heard anew and solemnly interrogated.

The judge gave an order to an officer, and a moment after-
wards the door of the witness-room opened, and the officer,
accompanied by a gendarme ready to lend assistance, led in the
convict Brevet. The audience was in breathless suspense, and
all hearts palpitated as if they contained but a single soul.

Fantine 265

The old convict Brevet was clad in the black and grey jacket
of the central prisons. Brevet was about sixty years old; he
had the face of a man of business, and the air of a rogue. They
sometimes go together. He had become something like a turn-
key in the prison — to which he had been brought by new mis-
deeds. He was one of those men of whom their superiors are
wont to say, " He tries to make himself useful." The chaplain
bore good testimony to his religious habits. It must not be
forgotten that this happened under the Restoration.

" Brevet/' said the judge, " you have suffered infamous
punishment, and cannot take an oath."

Brevet cast down his eyes.

" Nevertheless," continued the judge, " even in the man
whom the law has degraded there may remain, if divine justice
permit, a sentiment of honour and equity. To that sentiment
I appeal in this decisive hour. If it still exist in you, as I hope,
reflect before you answer me; consider on the one hand this
man, whom a word from you may destroy; on the other hand,
justice, which a word from you may enlighten. The moment
is a solemn one, and there is still time to retract if you think
yourself mistaken. Prisoner, rise. Brevet, look well upon the
prisoner; collect your remembrances, and say, on your soul and
conscience, whether you still recognise this man as your former
comrade in the galleys, Jean Valjean."

Brevet looked at the prisoner, then turned again to the court.

" Yes, your honour, I was the first to recognise him, and still
do so. This man is Jean Valjean, who came to Toulon in 1796,
and left in 1815. I left a year after. He looks like a brute now,
but he must have grown stupid with age ; at the galleys he was
sullen. I recognise him now, positively."

" Sit down," said the judge. " Prisoner, remain standing."

Chenildieu was brought in, a convict for life, as was shown by
his red cloak and green cap. He was undergoing his punish-
ment in the galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for
this occasion. He was a little man, about fifty years old, active,
wrinkled, lean, yellow, brazen, restless, with a sort of sickly
feebleness in his limbs and whole person, and immense force in
bis eye. His companions in the galleys had nicknamed him
Je-nie-Dieu.

The judge addressed nearly the same words to him as to
Brevet. When he reminded him that his infamy had deprived
him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his head and
looked the spectators in the face. The judge requested him to

266 Les Miserables

collect his thoughts, and asked him, as he had Brevet, whether
he still recognised the prisoner.

Chenildieu burst out laughing.

" Gad ! do I recognise him ! we were five years on the same
chain. You're sulky with me, are you, old boy ? "

" Sit down," said the judge.

The officer brought in Cochepaille ; this other convict for life,
brought from the galleys and dressed in red like Chenildieu, was
a peasant from Lourdes, and a semi-bear of the Pvrenees. He
had tended flocks in the mountains, and from shepherd had
glided into brigandage. Cochepaille was not less uncouth than
the accused, and appeared still more stupid. He was one of
those unfortunate men whom nature turns out as wild beasts,
and society finishes up into galley slaves.

The judge attempted to move him'; by a few serious and
pathetic words, and asked him, as he had the others, whether
he still recognised without hesitation or difficulty the man
standing before him.

" It is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. " The same they
called Jean-the-Jack, he was so strong."

Each of the affirmations of these three men, evidently sincere
and in good faith, had excited in the audience a murmur of evil
augury for the accused — a murmur which increased in force and
continuance, every time a new declaration was added to the
preceding one. The prisoner himself listened to them with that
astonished countenance which, according to the prosecution, was
his principal means of defence. At the first, the gendarmes by
his side heard him mutter between his teeth: " Ah, well! there
is one of them ! " After the second, he said in a louder tone,
with an air almost of satisfaction, " Good ! " At the third, he
exclaimed, " Famous! "

The judge addressed him:

" Prisoner, you have listened. What have you to say ? "

He replied :

" I say — famous! "

A buzz ran through the crowd and almost invaded the jury.
It was evident that the man was lost.

" Officers," said the judge, " enforce order. I am about to
sum up the case."

At this moment there was a movement near the judge. A
voice was heard exclaiming:

" Brevet, Chenildieu, Cochepaille, look this way ! "

So lamentable and terrible was this voice that those who

Fantine 267

heard it felt their blood run cold. All eyes turned towards the
spot whence it came. A man, who had been sitting among the
privileged spectators behind the court, had risen, pushed open
the low door which separated the tribunal from the bar, and was
standing in the centre of the hall. The judge, the prosecuting
attorney, Monsieur Bamatabois, twenty persons recognised him,
and exclaimed at once :
" Monsieur Madeleine ! "

CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED

IT was he, indeed. The clerk's lamp lighted up his face. He
held his hat in hand; there was no disorder in his dress; his
overcoat was carefully buttoned. He was very pale, and
trembled slightly. His hair, already grey when he came to
Arras, was now perfectly white. It had become so during the
hour that he had been there. All eyes were strained towards
him.

The sensation was indescribable. There was a moment of
hesitation in the auditory. The voice had been so thrilling, the
man standing there appeared so calm, that at first nobody could
comprehend it. They asked who had cried out. They could
not believe that this tranquil man had uttered that fearful cry.

This indecision lasted but few seconds. Before even the
judge and prosecuting attorney could say a word, before the
gendarmes and officers could make a sign, the man, whom all
up to this moment called Monsieur Madeleine, had advanced
towards the witnesses, Cochepaille, Brevet, and Chenildieu.

" Do you not recognise me? " said he.

All three stood confounded, and indicated by a shake of the
head that they did not know him. Cochepaille, intimidated,
gave the military salute. Monsieur Madeleine turned towards
the jurors and court, and said in a mild voice:

" Gentlemen of the jury, release the accused. Your honour,
order my arrest. He is not the man whom you seek; it is I.
I am Jean Valjean."

Not a breath stirred. To the first commotion of astonish-
ment had succeeded a sepulchral silence. That species of
religious awe was felt in the ha.H which thrills the multitude at
the accomplishment of a grand action.

Nevertheless, the face of the judge was marked with sympathy

268 Les Miserables

and sadness; he exchanged glances with the prosecuting
attorney, and a few whispered words with the assistant judges.
He turned to the spectators and asked in a tone which was
understood by all:

" Is there a physician here? "

The prosecuting attorney continued :

" Gentlemen of the jury, the strange and unexpected incident
which disturbs the audience, inspires us, as well as yourselves,
with a feeling which we have no need to express. You all know,
at least by reputation, the honourable Monsieur Madeleine,

Mayor of M sur M . If there be a physician in the

audience, we unite with his honour the judge in entreating
him to be kind enough to lend his assistance to Monsieur Made-
leine and conduct him to his residence."

Monsieur Madeleine did not permit the prosecuting attorney
to finish, but interrupted him with a tone full of gentleness and
authority. These are the words he uttered; we give them
literally, as they were written down immediately after the trial,
by one of the witnesses of the scene — as they still ring in the ears
of those who heard them, now nearly forty years ago.

" I thank you, Monsieur Prosecuting Attorney, but I am not
mad. You shall see. You were on the point of committing a
great mistake ; release that man. I am accomplishing a duty ;
I am the unhappy convict. I am the only one who sees clearly
here, and I tell you the truth. What I do at this moment, God
beholds from on high, and that is sufficient. You can take me,
since I am here. Nevertheless, I have done my best. I have
disguised myself under another name, I have become rich, I
have become a mayor, I have desired to enter again among
honest men. It seems that this cannot be. In short, there are
many things which I cannot tell. I shall not relate to you the
story of my life: some day you will know it. I did rob Mon-
seigneur the Bishop — that is true; I did rob Petit Gervais — that
is true. They were right in telling you that Jean Valjean was a
wicked wretch. But all the blame may not belong to him.
Listen, your honours ; a man so abased as I, has no remonstrance
to make with Providence, nor advice to give to society: but,
mark you, the infamy from which I have sought to rise is per-
nicious to men. The galleys make the galley-slave. Receive
this in kindness, if you will. Before the galleys, I was a poor
peasant, unintelligent, a species of idiot; the galleys changed
me. I was stupid, I became wicked; I was a log, I became a
firebrand. Later, I was saved by indulgence and kindness, as

Fantine 269

I had been lost by severity. But, pardon, you cannot compre-
hend what I say. You will find in my house, among the ashes
of the fireplace, the forty-sous piece of which, seven years ago,
I robbed Petit Gervais. I have nothing more to add. Take me.
Great God ! the prosecuting attorney shakes his head. You say
' Monsieur Madeleine has gone mad ; ' you do not believe me.
This is hard to be borne. Do not condemn that man, at least.
What ! these men do not know me ! Would that Javert were
here. He would recognise me ! "

Nothing could express the kindly yet terrible melancholy of
the tone which accompanied these words.

He turned to the three convicts:

" Well ! I recognise you, Brevet, do you remember — "

He paused, hesitated a moment, and said :

" Do you remember those checkered, knit suspenders that
you had in the galleys ? "

Brevet started as if struck with surprise, and gazed wildly at
him from head to foot. He continued :

" Chenildieu, surnamed by yourself Je-nie-Dieu, the whole of
your left shoulder has been burned deeply, from laying it one
day on a chafing dish full of embers, to efface the three letters
T. F. P., which yet are still to be seen there. Answer me, is
this true?"

" It is true ! " said Chenildieu.

He turned to Cochepaille:

" Cochepaille, you have on your left arm, near where you
have been bled, a date put in blue letters with burnt powder.
It is the date of the landing of the emperor at Cannes, March \st,
1815. Lift up your sleeve."

Cochepaille lifted up his sleeve; all eyes around him were
turned to his naked arm. A gendarme brought a lamp; the
date was there.

The unhappy man turned towards the audience and the
court with a smile, the thought of which still rends the hearts of
those who witnessed it. It was the smile of triumph; it was
also the smile of despair.

" You see clearly," said he, " that I am Jean Valjean."

There were no longer either judges, or accusers, or gendarmes
in the hall; there were only fixed eyes and beating hearts.
Nobody remembered longer the part which he had to play; the
prosecuting attorney forgot that he was there to prosecute, the
judge that he was there to preside, the counsel for the defence
that he was there to defend. Strange to say no question was

270 Les Miserables

put, no authority intervened. It is the peculiarity of sublime
spectacles that they take possession of every soul, a. id make of
every witness a spectator. Nobody, perhaps, was positively
conscious of what he experienced; and, undoubtedly, nobody
said to himself that he there beheld the effulgence of a great
light, yet all felt dazzled at heart.

It was evident that Jean Valjean was before their eyes. That
fact shone forth. The appearance of this man had been enough
fully to clear up the case, so obscure a moment before. Without
need of any further explanation, the multitude, as by a sort of
electric revelation, comprehended instantly, and at a single
glance, this simple and magnificent story of a man giving him-
self up that another might not be condemned in his place. The
details, the hesitation, the slight reluctance possible were lost
in this immense, luminous fact.

It was an impression which quickly passed over, but for the
moment it was irresistible.

" I will not disturb the proceeding further," continued Jean
Valjean. " I am going, since I am not arrested. I have many
things to do. Monsieur the prosecuting attorney knows where
I am going, and will have me arrested when he chooses."

He walked towards the outer door. Not a voice was raised,
not an arm stretched out to prevent him. All stood aside.
There was at this moment an indescribable divinity within him
which makes the multitudes fall back and make way before a
man. He passed through the throng with slow steps. It was
never known who opened the door, but it is certain that the door
was open when he came to it. On reaching it he turned and
said:

" Monsieur the Prosecuting Attorney, I remain at your
disposal."

He then addressed himself to the auditory.

" You all, all who are here, think me worthy of pity, do you
not ? Great God ! when I think of what I have been on the point
of doing, I think myself worthy of envy. Still, would that all
this had not happened ! "

He went out, and the door closed as it had opened, for those
who do deeds sovereignly great are always sure of being served
by somebody in the multitude.

Less than an hour afterwards, the verdict of the jury dis-
charged from all accusation the said Champmathieu ; and
Champmathieu, set at liberty forthwith, went his way stupefied,
thinking all men mad, and understanding nothing of this vision.

BOOK EIGHTH-COUNTER-STROKE
I

IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE LOOKS AT HIS HAIR

DAY began to dawn. Fantine had had a feverish and sleepless
night, yet full of happy visions; she fell asleep at daybreak.
Sister Simplice, who had watched with her, took advantage of
this slumber to go and prepare a new potion of quinine. The
good sister had been for a few moments in the laboratory of the
infirmary, bending over her vials and drugs, looking at them
very closely on account of the mist which the dawn casts over
all objects, when suddenly she turned her head, and uttered a
faint cry. M. Madeleine stood before her. He had just come
in silently.

" You, Monsieur the Mayor ! " she exclaimed.

" How is the poor woman? " he answered in a low voice.

" Better just now. But we have been very anxious indeed."

She explained what had happened, that Fantine had been
very ill the night before, but was now better, because she
believed that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil for her child.
The sister dared not question the mayor, but she saw clearly
from his manner that he had not come from that place.

" That is well," said he. " You did right not to deceive her."

" Yes," returned the sister, " but now, Monsieur the Mayor,
when she sees you without her child, what shall we tell her? "

He reflected for a moment, then said :

" God will inspire us."

" But, we cannot tell her a lie," murmured the sister, in a
smothered tone.

The broad daylight streamed into the room, and lighted up
the face of M. Madeleine.

The sister happened to raise her eyes.

" O God, monsieur," she exclaimed. " What has befallen
you ? Your hair is all white ! "

" White ! " said he.

Sister Simplice had no mirror; she rummaged in a case of
instruments, and found a little glass which the physician of the

271

272 Les Miserables

infirmary used to discover whether the breath had left the body
of a patient. M. Madeleine took the glass, looked at his hair
in it, and said, " Indeed ! "

He spoke the word with indifference, as if thinking of some-
thing else.

The sister felt chilled by an unknown something, of which
she caught a glimpse in all this.

He asked: " Can I see her? "

" Will not Monsieur the Mayor bring back her child? " asked
the sister, scarcely daring to venture a question.

" Certainly, but two or three days are necessary."

" If she does not see Monsieur the Mayor here," continued
the sister timidly, " she will not know that he has returned; it
will be easy for her to have patience, and when the child comes,
she will think naturally that Monsieur the Mayor has just
arrived with her. Then we will not have to tell her a falsehood."

Monsieur Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments,
ihen said with his calm gravity:

" No, my sister, I must see her. Perhaps I have not much
time."

The nun did not seem to notice this " perhaps," which gave
an obscure and singular significance to the words of Monsieur
the Mayor. She answered, lowering her eyes and voice respect-
fully:

" In that case, she is asleep, but monsieur can go in."

He made a few remarks about a door that shut with difficulty,
the noise of which might awaken the sick woman; then entered
the chamber of Fantine, approached her bed, and opened the
curtains. She was sleeping. Her breath came from her chest
with that tragic sound which is peculiar to these diseases, and
which rends the heart of unhappy mothers, watching the
slumbers of their fated children. But this laboured respiration
scarcely disturbed an ineffable serenity, which overshadowed
her countenance, and transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor
had become whiteness, and her cheeks were glowing. Her long,
fair eyelashes, the only beauty left to her of her maidenhood
and youth, quivered as they lay closed upon her cheek. Her
whole person trembled as if with the fluttering of wings which
were felt, but could not be seen, and which seemed about to
unfold and bear her away. To see her thus, no one could have
believed that her life was despaired of. She looked more as if
about to soar away than to die.

The stem, when the hand is stretched out to pluck the flower,

Fantine 273

quivers, and seems at once to shrink back, and present itself.
The human body has something of this trepidation at the
moment when the mysterious fingers of death are about to
gather the soul.

Monsieur Madeleine remained for some time motionless near
the bed, looking by turns at the patient and the crucifix, as he
had done two months before, on the day when he came for the
first time to see her in this asylum. They were still there, both
in the same attitude, she sleeping, he praying; only now, after
these two months had rolled away, her hair was grey and his
was white.

The sister had not entered with him. He stood by the bed,
with his finger on his lips, as if there were some one in the room
to silence. She opened her eyes, saw him, and said tranquilly,
with a smile:

"AndCosette?"

FANTINE HAPPY

SHE did not start with surprise or joy ; she was joy itself. The
simple question: " And Cosette? " was asked with such deep
faith, with so much certainty, with so complete an absence of
disquiet or doubt, that he could find no word in reply. She
continued :

" I knew that you were there; I was asleep, but I saw you.
I have seen you for a long time ; I have followed you with my
eyes the whole night. You were in a halo of glory, and all
manner of celestial forms were hovering around you ! "

He raised his eyes towards the crucifix.

" But tell me, where is Cosette? " she resumed. " Why not
put her on my bed that I might see her the instant I woke ? "

He answered something mechanically, which he could never
afterwards recall.

Happily, the physician had come and had been apprised of
this. He came to the aid of M. Madeleine.

" My child," said he, " be calm, your daughter is here."

The eyes of Fantine beamed with joy, and lighted up her
whole countenance. She clasped her hands with an expression
full of the most violent and most gentle entreaty :

" Oh! " she exclaimed, " bring her to me! "

Touching illusion of the mother; Cosette was still to her a
little child to be carried in the arms.

274 Les Miserables

" Not yet," continued the physician, " not at this moment.
You ha\ e some fever still. The sight of your child will agitate
you, and make you worse. We must cure you first."

She interrupted him impetuously.

" But I am cured ! I tell you I am cured ! Is this physician
a fool? I will see my child! "

" You see how you are carried away ! " said the physician.
" So long as you are in this state, I cannot let you have your
child. It is not enough to see her, you must live for her. When
you are reasonable, I will bring her to you myself."

The poor mother bowed her head.

" Sir, I ask your pardon. I sincerely ask your pardon. Once
I would not have spoken as I have now, but so many misfor-
tunes have befallen me that sometimes I do not know what I
am saying. I understand, you fear excitement; I will wait as
long as you wish, but I am sure that it will not harm me to see
my daughter. I see her now, I have not taken my eyes from
her since last night. Let them bring her to me now, and I will
just speak to her very gently. That is all. Is it not very-
natural that I should wish to see my child, when they have been
to Montfermeil on purpose to bring her to me ? I am not angry.
I know that I am going to be very happy. All night, I saw
figures in white, smiling on me. As soon as the doctor pleases,
he can bring Cosette. My fever is gone, for I am cured ; I feel
that there is scarcely anything the matter with me; but I will
act as if I were ill, and do not stir so as to please the ladies
here. When they see that I am calm, they will say: ' You
must give her the child.' "

M. Madeleine was sitting in a chair by the side of the bed.
She turned towards him, and made visible efforts to appear calm
and " very good," as she said, in that weakness of disease which
resembles childhood, so that, seeing her so peaceful, there should
be no objection to bringing her Cosette. Nevertheless, although
restraining herself, she could not help addressing a. thousand
questions to M. Madeleine.

" Did you have a pleasant journey, Monsieur the Mayor?
Oh ! how good you have been to go for her ! Tell me only how
she is! Did she bear the journey well? Ah! she will not
know me. In all this time, she has forgotten me, poor kitten !
Children have no memory. They are like birds. To-day they
see one thing, and to-morrow another, and remember nothing.
Tell me only, were her clothes clean? Did those Thenardiers
keep her neat? How did they feed her? Oh, if you knew how

Fantine 275

I have suffered in asking myself all these things in the time of
my wretchedness ! Now, it is past. I am happy. Oh ! how I
want to see her! Monsieur the Mayor, did you think her
pretty? Is not my daughter beautiful ? You must have been
very cold in the diligence? Could they not bring her here for
one little moment? they might take her away immediately.
Say! you are master here, are you willing? "

He took her hand. " Cosette is beautiful/' said he. " Cosette
is well; you shall see her soon, but be quiet. You talk too
fast; and then you throw your arms out of bed, which makes
you cough."

In fact, coughing fits interrupted Fantine at almost every
word.

She did not murmur; she feared that by too eager entreaties
she had weakened the confidence which she wished to inspire,
and began to talk about indifferent subjects.

" Montfermeil is a pretty place, is it not? In summer people
go there on pleasure parties. Do the Thenardiers do a good
business? Not many great people pass through that country.
Their inn is a kind of chop-house."

Monsieur Madeleine still held her hand and looked at her with
anxiety. It was evident that he had come to tell her things
before which his mind now hesitated. The physician had made
his visit and retired. Sister Simplice alone remained with them.

But in the midst of the silence, Fantine cried out: —

" I hear her ! Oh, darling ! I hear her ! "

There was a child playing in the court — the child of the
portress or some workwoman. It was one of those chances
which are always met with, and which seem to make part of
the mysterious representation of tragic events. The child,
which was a little girl, was running up and down to keep herself
warm, singing and laughing in a loud voice. Alas! with what
are not the plays of children mingled ! Fantine had heard this
little girl singing.

" Oh ! " said she, " it is my Cosette ! I know her voice ! "

The child departed as she had come, and the voice died away.
Fantine listened for some time. A shadow came over her face,
and Monsieur Madeleine heard her whisper, " How wicked it
is of that doctor not to let me see my child! That man has
a bad face ! "

But yet her happy train of thought returned. With her head
on the pillow she continued to talk to herself. " How happy
we shall be! We will have a little garden in the first place;

276

Les Miserables

Monsieur Madeleine has promised it to me. My child will play
in the garden. She must know her letters now. I will teach
her to spell. She will chase the butterflies in the grass, and I
will watch her. Then there will be her first communion. Ah !
when will her first communion be ? "

She began to count on her fingers.

" One, two, three, four. She is seven years old. In five
years. She will have a white veil and open- worked stockings,
and will look like a little lady. Oh, my good sister, you do not
know how foolish I am; here I am thinking of my child's first
communion! "

And she began to laugh.

He had let go the hand of Fantine. He listened to the words
as one listens to the wind that blows, his eyes on the ground,
and his mind plunged into unfathomable reflections. Suddenly
she ceased speaking, and raised her head mechanically. Fantine
had become appalling.

She did not speak; she did not breathe; she half -raised her-
self in the bed, the covering fell from her emaciated shoulders:
her countenance, radiant a moment before, became livid, and
her eyes, dilated with terror, seemed to fasten on something
before her at the other end of the room.

" Good God ! " exclaimed he. " What is the matter, Fantine ? "

She did not answer; she did not take her eyes from the object
which she seemed to see, but touched his arm with one hand,
and with the other made a sign to him to look behind him.

He turned, and saw Javert.

Ill

JAVERT SATISFIED

LET us see what had happened.

The half hour after midnight was striking when M. Madeleine
left the hall of the Arras Assizes. He had returned to his inn
just in time to take the mail-coach, in which it will be remem-
bered he had retained his seat. A little before six in the morning

he had reached M sur M , where his first care had been

to post his letter to M. Laffitte, then go to the infirmary and
visit Fantine.

Meanwhile he had scarcely left the hall of the Court of Assizes
when the prosecuting attorney, recovering from his first shock,

Fantine 277

addressed the court, deploring the insanity of the honourable

Mayor of M sur M , declaring that his convictions were

in no wise modified by this singular incident, which would be
explained hereafter, and demanding the conviction of this
Champmathieu, who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The
persistence of the prosecuting attorney was visibly in contra-
diction to the sentiment of all — the public, the court, and the
jury. The counsel for the defence had little difficulty in answer-
ing this harangue, and establishing that, in consequence of the
revelations of M. Madeleine — that is, of the real Jean Valjean —
the aspect of the case was changed, entirely changed, from top
to bottom, and that the jury now had before them an innocent
man. The counsel drew from this a few passionate appeals,
unfortunately not very new, in regard to judicial errors, etc.,
etc.; the judge, in his summing up, sided with the defence; and
the jury, after a few moments' consultation, acquitted Champ-
mathieu.

But yet the prosecuting attorney must have a Jean Valjean,
and having lost Champmathieu he took Madeleine.

Immediately upon the discharge of Champmathieu the prose-
cuting attorney closeted himself with the judge. The subject
of their conference was, " Of the necessity of the arrest of the

person of Monsieur the Mayor of M sur M ." This

sentence, in which there is a great deal of of, is the prosecuting
attorney's, written by his own hand, on the minutes of his
report to the Attorney-general.

The first sensation being over, the judge made few objections.
Justice must take its course. Then to confess the truth,
although the judge was a kind man, and really intelligent, he
was at the same time a strong, almost a zealous royalist, and

had been shocked when the mayor of M sur M , in

speaking of the debarkation at Cannes, said the Emperor,
instead of Buonaparte.

The order of arrest was therefore granted. The prosecuting"

attorney sent it to M sur M by a courier, at full speed,

to police inspector Javert.

It will be remembered that Javert had returned to M sur

M immediately after giving his testimony.

Javert was just rising when the courier brought him the
warrant and order of arrest.

The courier was himself a policeman, and an intelligent man ;
who, in three words, acquainted Javert with what had happened
at Arras.

Les Miserables

The order of arrest, signed by the prosecuting attorney, was
couched in these terms : —

" Inspector Javert will seize the body of Sieur Madeleine,

Mayor of M sur M , who has this day been identified in

court as the discharged convict Jean Valjean."

One who did not know Javert, on seeing him as he entered
the hall of the infirmary, could have divined nothing of what
was going on, and would have thought his manner the most
natural imaginable. He was cool, calm, grave; his grey hair
lay perfectly smooth over his temples, and he had ascended the
stairway with his customary deliberation. But one who knew
him thoroughly and examined him with attention, would have
shuddered. The buckle of his leather cravat, instead of being
on the back of his neck, was under his left ear. This denoted
an unheard-of agitation.

Javert was a complete character, without a wrinkle in his
duty or his uniform, methodical with villains, rigid with the
buttons of his coat.

For him to misplace the buckle of his cravat, he must have
received one of those shocks which may well be the earthquakes
of the soul.

He came unostentatiously, had taken a corporal and four
soldiers from a station-house near-by, had left the soldiers in
the court, and had been shown to Fantine's chamber by the
portress, without suspicion, accustomed as she was to see armed
men asking for the mayor.

On reaching the room of Fantine, Javert turned the key,
pushed open the door with the gentleness of a sick-nurse, or a
police spy, and entered.

Properly speaking, he did not enter. He remained standing
in the half-opened door, his hat on his head, and his left hand
in his overcoat, which was buttoned to the chin. In the bend
of his elbow might be seen the leaden head of his enormous cane,
which disappeared behind him.

He remained thus for nearly a minute, unperceived. Suddenly,
Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and caused Monsieur Madeleine
to turn round.

At the moment when the glance of Madeleine encountered
that of Javert, Javert, without stirring, without moving,
without approaching, became terrible. No human feeling can
ever be so appalling as joy.

It was the face of a demon who had again found his victim.

The certainty that he had caught Jean Valjean at last brought

Fantine 279

forth upon his countenance all that was in his soul. The
disturbed depths rose to the surface. The humiliation of having
lost the scent for a little while, of having been mistaken for a
few moments concerning Champmathieu, was lost in the pride
of having divined so well at first, and having so long retained
a true instinct. The satisfaction of Javert shone forth in his
commanding attitude. The deformity of triumph spread over
his narrow forehead. It was the fullest development of horror
that a gratified face can show.

Javert was at this moment in heaven. Without clearly
defining his own feelings, yet notwithstanding with a confused
intuition of his necessity and his success, he, Javert, personified
justice, light, and truth, in their celestial function as destroyers
of evil. He was surrounded and supported by infinite depths
of authority, reason, precedent, legal conscience, the vengeance
of the law, all the stars in the firmament; he protected order,
he hurled forth the thunder of the law, he avenged society, he
lent aid to the absolute ; he stood erect in a halo of glory ; there
was in his victory a reminder of defiance and of combat; stand-
ing haughty, resplendent, he displayed in full glory the super-
human beastliness of a ferocious archangel ; the fearful shadow
of the deed which he was accomplishing, made visible in his
clenched fist, the uncertain flashes of the social sword; happy
and indignant, he had set his heel on crime, vice, rebellion,
perdition, and hell, he was radiant, exterminating, smiling;
there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous St.
Michael.

Javert, though hideous, was not ignoble.

Probity, sincerity, candour, conviction, the idea of duty, are
things which, mistaken, may become hideous, but which, even
though hideous, remain great; their majesty, peculiar to the
human conscience, continues in all their horror; they are
virtues with a single vice — error. The pitiless, sincere joy of a
fanatic in an act of atrocity preserves an indescribably mournful
radiance which inspires us with" veneration. Without suspect-
ing it, Javert, in his fear-inspiring happiness, was pitiable, like
every ignorant man who wins a triumph. Nothing could be
more painful and terrible than this face, which revealed what
we may call all the evil of good.

280 Les Miserables

AUTHORITY RESUMES ITS SWAY

FANTINE had not seen Javert since the day the mayor had
wrested her from him. Her sick brain accounted for nothing,
only she was sure that he had come for her. She could not
endure this hideous face, she felt as if she were dying, she hid
her face with both hands, and shrieked in anguish:

" Monsieur Madeleine, save me ! "

Jean Valjean, we shall call him by no other name henceforth,
had risen. He said to Fantine in his gentlest and calmest tone :

" Be composed; it is not for you that he comes."

He then turned to Javert and said :

" I know what you want."

Javert answered :

" Hurry along."

There was in the manner in which these two words were
uttered, an inexpressible something which reminded you of a
wild beast and of a madman. Javert did not say " Hurry
along! " he said: " Hurr-'long ! " No orthography can express
the tone in which this was pronounced; it ceased to be human
speech; it was a howl.

He did not go through the usual ceremony ; he made no words ;
he showed no warrant. To him Jean Valjean was a sort of
mysterious and intangible antagonist, a shadowy wrestler with
whom he had been struggling for five years, without being able
to throw him. This arrest was not a beginning, but an end.
He only said: " Hurry along !"

\Vhile speaking thus, he did not stir a step, but cast upon
Jean Valjean a look like a noose, with which he was accustomed
to draw the wretched to him by force.

It was the same look which Fantine had felt penetrate to the
very marrow of her bones, two months before.

At the exclamation of Javert, Fantine had opened her eyes
again. But the mayor was there, what could she fear?

Javert advanced to the middle of the chamber, exclaiming:

" Hey, there ; are you coming ? "

The unhappy woman looked around her. There was no one
but the nun and the mayor. To whom could this contemptuous
familiarity be addressed? To herself alone. She shuddered.

Then she saw a mysterious thing, so mysterious that its like
had never appeared to her in the darkest delirium of fever.

Fantine 281

She saw the spy Javert seize Monsieur the Mayor by the
collar; she saw Monsieur the Mayor bow his head. The world
seemed vanishing before her sight.

Javert, in fact, had taken Jean Valjean by the collar.

" Monsieur the Mayor ! " cried Fantine.

Javert burst into a horrid laugh, displaying all his teeth.

"There is no Monsieur the Mayor here any longer!"
said he.

Jean Valjean did not attempt to disturb the hand which
grasped the collar of his coat. He said :

" Javert—"

Javert interrupted him : " Call me Monsieur the Inspector ! "

" Monsieur," continued Jean Valjean, " I would like to speak
a word with you in private."

" Aloud, speak aloud," said Javert, " people speak aloud
to me."

Jean Valjean went on, lov/ering his voice.

" It is a request that I have to make of you — "

" I tell you to speak aloud."

" But this should not be heard by any one but yourself."

" What is that to me? I will not listen."

Jean Valjean turned to him and said rapidly and in a very
low tone:

" Give me three days ! Three days to go for the child of this
unhappy woman ! I will pay whatever is necessary. You shall
accompany me if you like."

" Are you laughing at me ! " cried Javert. " Hey ! I did not
think you so stupid ! You ask for three days to get away, and
tell me that you are going for this girl's child ! Ha, ha, that's
good ! That is good ! "

Fantine shivered.

" My child ! " she exclaimed, " going for my child ! Then she
is not here! Sister, tell me, where is Cosette? I want my
child ! Monsieur Madeleine, Monsieur the Mayor ! "

Javert stamped his foot.

" There is the other now ! Hold your tongue, hussy !
Miserable country, where galley slaves are magistrates and
women of the town are nursed like countesses! Ha, but all
this will be changed; it was time! "

He gazed steadily at Fantine, and added, grasping anew the
cravat, shirt, and coat collar of Jean Valjean:

" I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine, and that
there is no Monsieur the Mayor. There is a robber, there is a

282 Les Miserables

brigand, there is a convict called Jean Valjean, and I have got
him ! That is what there is! "

Fantine started upright, supporting herself by her rigid arms
and hands; she looked at Jean Valjean, then at Javert, and
then at the nun; she opened her mouth as if to speak; a rattle
came from her throat, her teeth struck together, she stretched
out her arms in anguish, convulsively opening her hands, and
groping about her like one who is drowning; then sank suddenly
back upon the pillow.

Her head struck the head of the bed and fell forward on her
breast, the mouth gaping, the eyes open and glazed.

She was dead.

Jean Valjean put his hand on that of Javert which held him,
and opened it as he would have opened the hand of a child;
then he said:

" You have killed this woman."

" Have done with this ! " cried Javert, furious, " I am not
here to listen to sermons; save all that; the guard is below;
come right along, or the handcuffs ! "

There stood in a corner of the room an old iron bedstead in
a dilapidated condition, which the sisters used as a camp-bed
when they watched. Jean Valjean went to the bed, wrenched
out the rickety head bar — a thing easy for muscles like his — in
the twinkling of an eye, and with the bar in his clenched fist,
looked at Javert. Javert recoiled towards the door.

Jean Valjean, his iron bar in hand, walked slowly towards
the bed of Fantine. On reaching it, he turned and said to
Javert in a voice that could scarcely be heard:

" I advise you not to disturb me now."

Nothing is more certain than that Javert trembled.

He had an idea of calling the guard, but Jean Valjean might
profit by his absence to escape. He remained therefore, grasped
the bottom of his cane, and leaned against the framework of
the door without taking his eyes from Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean rested his elbow upon the post, and his head
upon his hand, and gazed at Fantine. stretched motionless
before him. He remained thus, mute and absorbed, evidently
lost to everything of this life. His countenance and attitude
bespoke nothing but inexpressible pity.

After a few moments' reverie, he bent down to Fantine, and
addressed her in a whisper.

What did he say? What could this condemned man say to
this dead woman ? What were these words ? They were heard

Fantine 283

by none on earth. Did the dead woman hear them? There
are touching illusions which perhaps are sublime realities. One
thing is beyond doubt; Sister Simplice, the only witness of what
passed, has often related that, at the moment when Jean Val-
jean whispered in the ear of Fantine, she distinctly saw an
ineffable smile beam on those pale lips and in those dim eyes,
full of the wonder of the tomb.

Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in his hands and arranged
it on the pillow, as a mother would have done for her child,
then fastened the string of her night-dress, and replaced her
hair beneath her cap. This done, he closed her eyes.

The face of Fantine, at this instant, seemed strangely illumined.

Death is the entrance into the great light.

Fantine's hand hung over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean
knelt before this hand, raised it gently, and kissed it.

Then he rose, and, turning to Javert, said:

" Now, I am at your disposal."

A FITTING TOMB

J AVERT put Jean Valjean in the city prison.
The arrest of Monsieur Madeleine produced a sensation, of

rather an extraordinary commotion, at M sur M . We

are sorry not to be able to disguise the fact that, on this single
sentence, he was a galley slave, almost everybody abandoned
him. In less than two hours, all the good he had done was
forgotten, and he was " nothing but a galley slave." It is just
to say that the details of the scene at Arras were not yet known.
All day long, conversations like this were heard in every part
of the town: " Don't you know, he was a discharged convict! "
"He! Who?" "The mayor." " Bah! Monsieur Madeleine."
"Yes." "Indeed!" " His name was not Madeleine; he has
a horrid name, Be" jean, Bojean, Bonjean! " " Oh! bless me! "
" He has been arrested." " Arrested ! " " In prison, in the
city prison to await his removal." " His removal! where will
he be taken? " " To the Court of Assizes for a highway robbery
that he once committed." " Well! I always did suspect him.
The man was too good, too perfect, too sweet. He refused fees,
and gave sous to every little blackguard he met. I always
thought that there must be something bad at the bottom of
all this."

284

Les Miserables

" The drawing-rooms/' above all, were entirely of this opinion.

An old lady, a subscriber to the Drapeau Blanc, made this
remark, the depth of which it is almost impossible to fathom:

" I am not sorry for it. That will teach the Bonapartists ! "

In this manner the phantom which had been called Monsieur

Madeleine was dissipated at M sur M . Three or four

persons alone in the whole city remained faithful to his memory.
The old portress who had been his servant was among the
number.

On the evening of this same day, the worthy old woman was
sitting in her lodge, still quite bewildered and sunk in sad
reflections. The factory had been closed all day, the carriage
doors were bolted, the street was deserted. There was no one
in the house but the two nuns, Sister Perpetue and Sister
Simplice, who were watching the corpse of Fantine.

Towards the time when Monsieur Madeleine had been
accustomed to return, the honest portress rose mechanically,
took the key of his room from a drawer, with the taper-stand
that he used at night to light himself up the stairs, then hung
the key on a nail from which he had been in the habit of taking
it, and placed the taper-stand by its side, as if she were expecting
him. She then seated herself again in her chair, and resumed
her reflections. The poor old woman had done all this without
being conscious of it.

More than two hours had elapsed when she started from her
reverie and exclaimed, " Why, bless me! I have hung his key
on the nail ! "

Just then, the window of her box opened, a hand passed
through the opening, took the key and stand, and lighted the
taper at the candle which was burning.

The portress raised her eyes ; she was transfixed with astonish-
ment; a cry rose to her lips, but she could not give it utterance.

She knew the hand, the arm, the coat-sleeve.

It was M. Madeleine.

She was speechless for some seconds, thunderstruck, as she
said herself, afterwards, in giving her account of the affair.

"My God! Monsieur Mayor!" she exclaimed, "I thought
you were "

She stopped; the end of her sentence would not have been
respectful to the beginning. To her, Jean Valjean was still
Monsieur the Mayor.

He completed her thought.

" In prison," said he. " I was there; I broke a bar from a

Fantinc 285

window, let myself fall from the top of a roof, and here I am.
I am going to my room ; go for Sister Simplice. She is doubtless
beside this poor woman."

The old servant hastily obeyed.

He gave her no caution,, very sure she would guard him better
than he would guard himself.

It has never been known how he had succeeded in gaining
entrance into the court-yard without opening the carriage-door.
He had, and always carried about him, a pass-key which opened
a little side door, but he must have been searched, and this
taken from him. This point is not yet cleared up.

He ascended the staircase which led to his room. On reach-
ing the top, he left his taper stand on the upper stair, opened
his door with little noise, felt his way to the window and closed
the shutter, then came back, took his taper, arid went into
the chamber.

The precaution was not useless; it will be remembered that
his window could be seen from the street.

He cast a glance about him, over his table, his chair, his bed,
which had not been slept in for three days. There remained no
trace of the disorder of the night before the last. The portress
had " put the room to rights." Only, she had picked up from
the ashes, and laid in order on the table, the ends of the loaded
club, and the forty-sous piece, blackened by the fire.

He took a sheet of paper and wrote: These are the ends of
my loaded dub and the forty-sous piece stolen from Petit Gervais,
of which I spoke at the Court of Assizes ; then placed the two
bits of iron and the piece of silver on the sheet in such a way
that it would be the first thing perceived on entering the room.
He took from a wardrobe an old shirt which he tore into several
pieces and in which he packed the two silver candlesticks. In
all this there was neither haste nor agitation. And even while
packing the bishop's candlesticks, he was eating a piece of black
bread. It was probably prison-bread, which he had brought
away in escaping.

This has been established by crumbs of bread found on the
floor of the room, when the court afterwards ordered a search.

Two gentle taps were heard at the door.

" Come in," said he.

It was Sister Simplice.

She was pale, her eyes were red, and the candle which she
held trembled in her hand. The shocks of destiny have this
peculiarity; however subdued or disciplined our feelings may

286 Les Miserables

be, they draw out the human nature from the depths of our
souls, and compel us to exhibit it to others. In the agitation
of this day the nun had again become a woman. She had wept,
and she was trembling.

Jean Valjean had written a few lines on a piece of paper,
which he handed to the nun, saying: " Sister, you will give
this to the cure."

The paper was not folded. She cast her eyes on it.

" You may read it," said he.

She read: " I be'g Monsieur the Cure to take charge of all
that I leave here. He will please defray therefrom the expenses
of my trial, and of the burial of the woman who died this
morning. The remainder is for the poor."

The sister attempted to speak, but could scarcely stammer
out a few inarticulate sounds. She succeeded, however, in
saying :

" Does not Monsieur the Mayor wish to see this poor unfor-
tunate again for the last time? "

" No," said he, " I am pursued; I should only be arrested in
her chamber; it would disturb her."

He had scarcely finished when there was a loud noise on the
staircase. They heard a tumult of steps ascending, and the old
portress exclaiming in her loudest and most piercing tones :

" My good sir, I swear to you in the name of God, that nobody
has come in here the whole day, and the whole evening; that
I have not even once left my door ! "

A man replied: " But yet, there is a light in this room."

They recognised the voice of Javert.

The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening covered
the corner of the wall to the right. Jean Valjean blew out the
taper, and placed himself in this corner.

Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table.

The door opened.

Javert entered.

The whispering of several men, and the protestations of the
portress were heard in the hall.

The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying.

The candle was on the mantel, and gave but a dim light.

Javert perceived the sister, and stopped abashed.

It will be remembered that the very foundation of Javert,
his element, the medium in which he breathed, was veneration
for all authority. He was perfectly homogeneous, and admitted
of no objection, or abridgment. To him, be it understood,

Fantinc 287

ecclesiastical authority was the highest of all; he was devout,
superficial, and correct, upon this point as upon all others. In
his eyes, a priest was a spirit who was never mistaken, a nun
was a being who never sinned. They were souls walled in from
this world, with a single door which never opened but for the
exit of truth.

On perceiving the sister, his first impulse was to retire.

But there was also another duty which held him, and which
urged him imperiously in the opposite direction. His second
impulse was to remain, and to venture at least one question.

This was the Sister Simplice, who had never lied in her life.
Javert knew this, and venerated her especially on account of it.

" Sister," said he, " are you alone in this room? "

There was a fearful instant during which the poor portress
felt her limbs falter beneath her. The sister raised her eyes,
and replied:

" Yes."

Then continued Javert — " Excuse me if I persist, it is my
duty — you have not seen this evening a person, a man — he has;
escaped, and we are in search of him — Jean Valjean — you have-
not seen him? "

The sister answered — " No."

She lied. Two lies in succession, one upon another, without
hesitation, quickly, as if she were an adept in it.

" Your pardon ! " said Javert, and he withdrew, bowing:
reverently.

Oh, holy maiden ! for many years thou hast been no more in
this world; thou hast joined the sisters, the virgins, and thy
brethren, the angels, in glory; may this falsehood be remem-
bered to thee in Paradise.

The affirmation of the sister was to Javert something so
decisive that he did not even notice the singularity of this taper,
just blown out, and smoking on the table.

An hour afterwards, a man was walking rapidly in the dark-
ness beneath the trees from M sur M in the direction

of Paris. This man was Jean Valjean. It has been established,
by the testimony of two or three waggoners who met him, that
he carried a bundle, and was dressed in a blouse. Where did
he get this blouse? It was never known.. Nevertheless, an
old artisan had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days
before, leaving nothing but his blouse. This might have been-
the one.

A last word in regard to Fantine.

?, 88 Les Miser ables

We have all one mother — the earth. Fantine was restored
to this mother.

The cure thought best, and did well perhaps, to reserve out
of what Jean Valjean had left, the largest amount possible for
the poor. After all, who were in question? — a convict and a
woman of the town. This was why he simplified the burial of
Fantine, and reduced it to that bare necessity called the Potter's
field.

And so Fantine was buried in the common grave of the
cemetery, which is for everybody and for all, and in which the
poor are lost. Happily, God knows where to find the soul.
Fantine was laid away in the darkness with bodies which had
no name; she suffered the promiscuity of dust. She was
thrown into the public pit. Her tomb was like her bed.

COSETTE

BOOK FIRST— WATERLOO

•
I

WHAT YOU MEET IN COMING FROM NIVELLES

ON a beautiful morning in May, last year (1861), a traveller, he
who tells this story, was journeying from Nivelles towards La
Hulpe. He travelled a-foot. He was following, between two
rows of trees, a broad road, undulating over hills, which, one
after another, upheave it and let it fall again, like enormous
waves. He had passed Lillois vand Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. He
saw to the west the slated steeple of Braine-l'Alleud, which has
the form of an inverted vase. He had just passed a wood upon
a hill, and at the corner of a cross-road, beside a sort of worm-
eaten sign-post, bearing the inscription — Old Toll-Gate, No. 4 —
a tavern with this sign: — The Four Winds. Echaleau, Private
Cafe.

Half a mile from this tavern, he reached the bottom of a
little valley, where a stream flowed beneath an arch in the
embankment of the road. The cluster of trees, thin-sown but
very green, which fills the vale on one side of the road, on the
other spreads out into meadows, and sweeps away in graceful
disorder towards Braine 1'Alleud.

At this point there was at the right, and immediately on the
road, an inn, with a four wheeled cart before the door, a great
bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a pile of dry brush near a quick-
set hedge, some lime which was smoking in a square hole in the
ground, and a ladder lying along an old shed with mangers for
straw. A young girl was pulling weeds in a field, where a large
green poster, probably of a travelling show at some annual fair,
fluttered in the wind. At the corner of the inn, beside a pond,
in which a flotilla of ducks was navigating, a difficult foot-path
lost itself in the shrubbery. The traveller took this path.

At the end of a hundred paces, passing a wall of the fifteenth
291

292 Les Miserables

century, surmounted by a sharp gable of crossed bricks, he found
himself opposite a great arched stone doorway, with rectilinear
impost, in the solemn style of Louis XIV., and plain medallions
on the sides. Over the entrance was a severe facade, and a
wall perpendicular to the facade almost touched the doorway,
flanking it at an abrupt right angle. On the meadow before
the door lay three harrows, through which were blooming, as
best they could, all the flowers of May. The doorway was
closed. It was shut by two decrepit folding-doors, decorated
with an old rusty knocker.

The sunshine was enchanting; the branches of the trees had
that gentle tremulousness of the month of May which seems to
come from the birds' nests rather than the wind. A spruce
little bird, probably in love, was singing desperately in a tall
tree.

The traveller paused and examined in the stone at the left of
the door, near the ground, a large circular excavation like the
hollow of a sphere. Just then the folding-doors opened, and a
peasant woman came out.

She saw the traveller, and perceived what he was examining.

" It was a French ball which did that/' said she.

And she added —

" What you see there, higher up, in the door, near a nail, is
the hole made by a Biscay musket. The musket has not gone
through the wood."

" What is the name of this place? " asked the traveller.

" Hougomont," the woman answered.

The traveller raised his head. He took a few steps and
looked over the hedges. He saw in the horizon, through the
trees, a sort of hillock, and on this hillock something which, in
the distance, resembled a lion.

He was on the battle-field of Waterloo.

HOUGOMONT

HOUGOMONT — this was the fatal spot, the beginning of the
resistance, the first check encountered at Waterloo by this
great butcher of Europe, called Napoleon; the first knot under
the axe.

It was a chateau; it is now nothing more than a farm.
Hougomont, to the antiquary, is Hugomons. This manor was

Cosette 293

built by Hugo, sire de Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth
chaplainship of the abbey of Villiers.

The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an old carriage
under the porch, and entered the court.

The first thing that he noticed in this yard was a door of the
sixteenth century, which seemed like an arch, everything having
fallen down around it. The monumental aspect is often pro-
duced by ruin. Near the arch opens another door in the wall,
with keystones of the time of Henry IV., which discloses the
trees of an orchard. Beside this door were a dung-hill, mattocks
and shovels, some carts, an old well with its flag-stone and iron
pulley, a skipping colt, a strutting turkey, a chapel surmounted
by a little steeple, a pear-tree in bloom, trained in espalier on
the wall of the chapel ; this was the court, the conquest of which
was the aspiration of Napoleon. This bit of earth, could he
have taken it, would perhaps have given him the world. The
hens are scattering the dust with their beaks. You hear a
growling : it is a great dog, who shows his teeth, and takes the
place of the English.

The English fought admirably there. The four companies of
guards under Cooke held their ground for seven hours, against
the fury of an assaulting army.

Hougomont, seen on the map, on a geometrical plan, com-
prising buildings and in closure, presents a sort of irregular
rectangle, one corner of which is cut off. At this corner is the
southern entrance, guarded by this wall, which commands it at
the shortest musket range. Hougomont has two entrances:
the southern, that of the chateau, and the northern, that of the
farm. Napoleon sent against Hougomont his brother Jerome.
The divisions of Guilleminot, Foy, and Bachelu were hurled
against it; nearly the whole corps of Reille was there employed
and there defeated, and the bullets of Kellermann were ex-
hausted against this heroic wall-front. It was too much for the
brigade of Bauduin to force Hougomont on the north, and the
brigade of Soye could only batter it on the south — it could not
take it.

The buildings of the farm ate on the southern side of the
court. A small portion of the northern door, broken by the
French, hangs dangling from the wall. It is composed of four
planks, nailed to two cross-pieces, and in it may be seen the
scars of the attack.

The northern door, forced by the French, and to which a
piece has been added to replace the panel suspended from the

294 Les Miserables

wall, stands half open at the foot of the court-yard; it is cut
squarely in a wall of stone below, and brick above, and closes
the court on the north. It is a simple cart-door, such as are
found on all small farms, composed of two large folding-doors,
made of rustic planks; beyond this are the meadows. This
entrance was furiously contested. For a long time there could
be seen upon the door all sorts of prints of bloody hands. It
was there that Bauduin was killed.

The storm of the combat is still in this court: the horror is
visible there; the overturn of the conflict is there petrified; it
lives, it dies; it was but yesterday. The walls are still in death
agonies; the stones fall, the breaches cry out; the holes are
wounds; the trees bend and shudder, as if making an effort to
escape.

This cour;, in 1815, was in better condition than it is to-day.
Structures which have since been pulled down formed redans,
angles, and squares.

The English were barricaded there; the French effected an
entrance, but could not maintain their position. At the side of
the chapel, one wing of the chateau, the only remnant which
exists of the manor of Hougomont, stands crumbling, one might
almost say disembowelled. The chateau served as donjon; the
chapel served as block-house. There was work of extermina-
tion. The French, shot down from all sides, from behind the
walls, from the roofs of the barns, from the bottom of the
cellars, through every window, through every air-hole, through
every chink in the stones, brought fagots and fired the walls and
the men : the storm of balls was answered by a tempest of flame.

A glimpse may be had in the ruined wing, through the iron-
barred windows, of the dismantled chambers of a main building;
the English guards lay in ambush in these chambers; the spiral
staircase, broken from foundation to roof, appears like the
interior of a broken shell. The staircase has two landings ; the
English, besieged in the staircase, and crowded upon the upper
steps, had cut away the lower ones. These are large slabs of
blue stone, now heaped together among the nettles. A dozen
steps still cling to the wall; on the first is cut the image of a
trident. These inaccessible steps are firm in their sockets; all
the rest resembles a toothless jaw-bone. Two old trees are
there; one is dead, the other is wounded at the root, and does
not leaf out until April. Since 1850 it has begun to grow across
the staircase.

There was a massacre in the chapel. The interior, again

Cosette 295

restored to quiet, is strange. No mass has been said there since
the carnage. The altar remains, however — a clumsy wooden
altar, backed by a wall of rough stone. Four whitewashed
walls, a door opposite the altar, two little arched windows, over
the door a large wooden crucifix, above the crucifix a square
opening in which is stuffed a bundle of straw; in a corner on
the ground, an old glazed sash all broken, such is this chapel.
Near the altar hangs a wooden statue of St. Anne of the fifteenth
century ; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried away by
a musket-shot. The French, masters for a moment of the
chapel, then dislodged, fired it. The flames filled this ruin; it
was a furnace; the door was burned, the floor was burned, but
the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire ate its way to his
feet, the blackened stumps of which only are visible; then it
stopped. A miracle, say the country people. The infant
Jesus, decapitated, was not so fortunate as the Christ.

The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of
the Christ we read this name: Henquinez. Then these others:
Conde de Rio Maior Marque'; y Marquesa de Almagre (Habana).
There are French names with exclamation points, signs of anger.
The wall was whitewashed in 1849. The nations were insulting
each other on it.

At the door of this chapel a body was picked up holding an
axe in its hand. This body was that of second-lieutenant Legros.

On coming out of the chapel, a well is seen at the left. There
are two in this yard. You ask: why is there no bucket and no
pulley to this one? Because no water is drawn from it now.
Why is no more water drawn from it? Because it is full of
skeletons.

The last man who drew water from that well was Guillaume
Van Kylsom. He was a peasant, who lived in Hougomont, and
was gardener there. On the i8th of June, 1815, his family fled
and hid in the woods.

The forest about the Abbey of Villiers concealed for several
days and several nights all that scattered and distressed popu-
lation. Even now certain vestiges may be distinguished, such
as old trunks of scorched trees, which mark the place of these
poor trembling bivouacs in the depths of the thickets.

Guillaume Van Kylsom remained at Hougomont " to take
care of the chateau," and hid in the cellar. The English dis-
covered him there. He was torn from his hiding place, and,
with blows of the flat of their swords, the soldiers compelled this
frightened man to wait upon them. They were thirsty; this

296

Les Miserables

Guillaume brought them drink. It was from this well that he
drew the water. Many drank their last quaff. This well,
where drank so many of the dead, must die itself also.

After the action, there was haste to bury the corpses. Death
has its own way of embittering victory, and it causes glory to
be followed by pestilence. Typhus is the successor of triumph.
This well was deep, it was made a sepulchre. Three hundred
dead were thrown into it. Perhaps with too much haste. Were
they all dead? Tradition says no. It appears that on the
night after the burial, feeble voices were heard calling out
from the well.

This well is isolated in the middle of the court-yard. Three
walls, half brick and half stone, folded back like the leaves of a
screen, and imitating a square turret, surround it on three sides.
The fourth side is open. On that side the water was drawn.
The back wall has a sort of shapeless bull's-eye, perhaps a hole
made by a shell. This turret had a roof, of which only the
beams remain. The iron that sustains the wall on the right is
in the shape of a cross. You bend over the well, the eye is
lost in a deep brick cylinder, which is filled with an accumulation
of shadows. All around it, the bottom of the walls is covered
by nettles.

This well has not in front the large blue flagging stone, which
serves as curb for all the wells of Belgium. The blue stone is
replaced by a cross-bar on which rest five or six misshapen
wooden stumps, knotty and hardened, that resemble huge
bones. There is no longer either bucket, or chain, or pulley;
but the stone basin is still there which served for the waste
water. The rain water gathers there, and from time to time
a bird from the neighbouring forest comes to drink and flies
away.

One house among these ruins, the farm-house, is still inhabited.
The door of this house opens upon the court-yard. By the side
of a pretty Gothic key-hole plate there is upon the door a hand-
ful of iron in trefoil, slanting forward. At the moment that
the Hanoverian lieutenant Wilda was seizing this to take refuge
in the farm-house, a French sapper struck off his hand with
the blow of an axe.

The family which occupies the house calls the former gardener
Van Kylsom, long since dead, its grandfather. A grey-haired
woman said to us: "I was there. I was there years old. My
sister, larger, was afraid, and cried. They carried us away into
the woods ; I was in my mother's arms. They laid their ears

Cosette 297

to the ground to listen. For my part, I mimicked the cannon,
and I went boom, boom."

One of the yard doors, on the left, we have said, opens into
the orchard.

The orchard is terrible.

It is in three parts, one might almost say in three acts. The
first part is a garden, the second is the orchard, the third is a
wood. These three parts have a common inclosure; on the
side of the entrance the buildings of the chateau and the farm,
on the left a hedge, on the right a wall, at the back a wall.
The wall on the right is of brick, the wall on the back is of
stone. The garden is entered first. It is sloping, planted with
currant bushes, covered with wild vegetation, and terminated
by a terrace of cut stone, with balusters with a double swell.
It is a seignorial garden, in this first French style, which pre-
ceded the modern; now ruins and briers. The pilasters are
surmounted by globes which look like stone cannon-balls. We
count forty- three balusters still in their places; the others are
lying in the grass, nearly all show some scratches of musketry.
A broken baluster remains upright like a broken leg.

It is in this garden, which is lower than the orchard, that six
of the first Light Voltigeurs, having penetrated thither, and
being unable to escape, caught and trapped like bears in a pit,
engaged in a battle with two Hanoverian companies, one of
which was armed with carbines. The Hanoverians were ranged
along these balusters, and fired from above. These voltigeurs,
answering from below, six against two hundred, intrepid, with
the currant bushes only for a shelter, took a quarter of an
hour to die.

You rise a few steps, and from the garden pass into the
orchard proper. There, in these few square yards, fifteen hun-
dred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready to
recommence the combat. The thirty-eight loopholes, pierced
by the English at irregular heights, are there yet. In front of
the sixteenth, lie two English tombs of granite. There are no
loopholes except in the south-wall, the principal attack came
from that side. This wall is concealed on the outside by a large
quickset hedge ; the French came up, thinking there was nothing
in their way but the hedge, crossed it, and found the wall, an
obstacle and an ambush, the English Guards behind, the thirty-
eight loopholes pouring forth their fire at once, a storm of grape
and of balls; and Soye's brigade broke there. Waterloo com-
menced thus.

298

Les Miserables

The orchard, however, was taken. They had no scaling
ladders, but the French climbed the wall with their hands.
They fought hand to hand under the trees. All this grass was
soaked with blood. A battaHon from Nassau, seven hundred
men, was annihilated there. On the outside, the wall, against
which the two batteries of Kellermann were directed, is gnawed
by grape.

This orchard is as responsive as any other to the month of
May. It has its golden blossoms and its daisies; the grass is
high; farm horses are grazing; lines on which clothes are
drying cross the intervals between the trees, making travellers
bend their heads; you walk over that sward, and your foot
sinks in the path of the mole. In the midst of the grass you
notice an uprooted trunk, lying on the ground, but still growing
green. Major Blackmann leaned back against it to die. Under
a large tree near by fell the German general, Duplat, of a French
family which fled on the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
Close beside it leans a diseased old apple tree swathed in a
bandage of straw and loam. Nearly all the apple trees are
falling from old age. There is not one which does not show its
cannon ball or its musket shot. Skeletons of dead trees abound
in this orchard. Crows fly in the branches; beyond it is a
wood full of violets.

Bauduin killed, Foy wounded, fire, skug'iter, carnage, a
brook made of English blood, of German blood, and of French
blood, mingled in fury; a well filled with corpses, the regiment
of Nassau and the regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat
killed, Blackmann killed, the English Guards crippled, twenty
French battalions, out of the forty of Reille's corps, decimated,
three thousand men, in this one ruin of Hougomont, sabred,
slashed, slaughtered, shot, burned; and all this in order that
to-day a peasant may say to a traveller: Monsieur, give me
three francs ; if you like, I will explain to you the affair of Waterloo.

Ill

THE iSTH OF JUNE, iSi.s

LET us go back, for such is the story-teller's privilege, and place
ourselves in the year 1815, a little before the date of the com-
mencement of the action narrated in the first part of this book.
Had it not rained on the night of the iyth of June, 1815, the
future of Europe would have been changed. A few drops of

Cosette 299

water more or less prostrated Napoleon. That Waterloo should
be the end of Austerlitz, Providence needed only a little rain,
and an unseasonable cloud crossing the sky sufficed for the
overthrow of a world.

The battle of Waterloo — and this gave Blucher time to come
up — could not be commenced before half -past eleven. Why?
Because the ground was soft. It was necessary to wait for it to
acquire some little firmness so that the artillery could manoeuvre.

Napoleon was an artillery officer, and he never forgot it.
The foundation of this prodigious captain was the man who, in
his report to the Directory upon Aboukir, said : Sue h of our
balls killed six men. All his plans of battle were made for pro-
jectiles. To converge the artillery upon a given point was his
key of victory. He treated the strategy of the hostile general
as a citadel, and battered it to a breach. He overwhelmed the
weak point with grape; he joined and resolved battles with
cannon. There was marksmanship in his genius. To destroy
squares, to pulverise regiments, to break lines, to crush and
disperse masses, all this was for him, to strike, strike, strike in-
cessantly, and he intrusted this duty to the cannon ball. A
formidable method, which, joined to genius, made this sombre
athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for fifteen years.

On the 1 8th of June, 1815, he counted on his artillery the
more because he had the advantage in numbers. Wellington
had only a hundred and fifty-nine guns; Napoleon had two
hundred and forty.

Had the ground been dry, and the artillery able to move, the
action would have been commenced at six o'clock in the morn-
ing. The battle would have been won and finished at two
o'clock, three hours before the Prussians turned the scale of
fortune.

How much fault is there on the part of Napoleon in the loss
of this battle ? Is the shipwreck to be imputed to the pilot ?

Was the evident physical decline of Napoleon accompanied
at this time by a corresponding mental decline ? had his twenty
years of war worn out the sword as well as the sheath, the soul
as well as the body? was the veteran injuriously felt in the
captain? in a word, was that genius, as many considerable
historians have thought, under an eclipse? had he put on a
frenzy to disguise his enfeeblement from himself? did he begin
to waver, and be bewildered by a random blast ? was he becom-
ing, a grave fault in a general, careless of danger ? in that class
of material great men who may be called the giants of action, is

300 Les Miserables

there an age when their genius becomes shortsighted ? Old age
has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal; for the Dantes and
the Michael Angelos, to grow old is to grow great; for the
Hannibals and the Bonapartes is it to grow less ? had Napoleon
lost his clear sense of victory ? could he no longer recognise the
shoal, no longer divine the snare, no longer discern the crumbling
edge of the abyss ? had he lost the instinct of disaster ? was he,
who formerly knew all the paths of triumph, and who, from the
height of his flashing car, pointed them out with sovereign
finger, now under such dark hallucination as to drive his tumul-
tuous train of legions over the precipices? was he seized, at
forty-six years, with a supreme madness ? was this titanic driver
of Destiny now only a monstrous breakneck?

We think not.

His plan of battle was, all confess, a masterpiece. To march
straight to the centre of the allied line, pierce the enemy, cut
them in two, push the British half upon Hal and the Prussian
half upon Tongres, make of Wellington and Blucher two frag-
ments, carry Mont Saint Jean, seize Brussels, throw the German
into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All this, for
Napoleon, was in this battle. What would follow, anybody
can see.

We do not, of course, profess to give here the history o(
Waterloo; one of the scenes that gave rise to the drama which
we are describing hangs upon that battle; but the history of
the battle is not our subject; that history moreover is told, and
told in a masterly way, from one point of view by Napoleon,
from the other point of view by Charras. As for us, we leave
the two historians to their contest; we are only a witness at a
distance, a passer in the plain, a seeker bending over this ground
kneaded with human flesh, taking perhaps appearances for
realities; we have no right to cope in the name of science with
a mass of facts in which there is doubtless some mirage; we
have neither the military experience nor the strategic ability
which authorises a system; in our opinion, a chain of accidents
overruled both captains at Waterloo; and when destiny is
called in, this mysterious accused, we judge like the people,
that artless judge.

Cosette 301

THOSE who would get a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have
only to lay down upon the ground in their mind a capital A.
The left stroke of the A is the road from Nivelles, the right
stroke is the road from Genappe, the cross of the A is the sunken
road from Ohain to Braine 1'AlIeud. The top of the A is Mont
Saint Jean, Wellington is there; the left-hand lower point is
Hougomont, Reille is there with Jerome Bonaparte; the right-
hand lower point is La Belle Alliance, Napoleon is there. A
little below the point where the cross of the A meets and cuts
the right stroke, is La Haie Sainte. At the middle of this cross
is the precise point where the final battle-word was spoken.
There the lion is placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme
heroism of the Imperial Guard.

The triangle contained at the top of the A, between the two
strokes and the cross, is the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. The
struggle for this plateau was the whole of the battle.

The wings of the two armies extended to the right and left
of the two roads from Genappe and from Nivelles; D'Erlon
being opposite Picton, Reille opposite Hill.

Behind the point of the A, behind the plateau of Mont Saint
Jean, is the forest of Soignes.

As to the plain itself, we must imagine a vast undulating
country; each wave commanding the next, and these undula-
tions rising towards Mont Saint Jean, are there bounded by
the forest.

Two hostile armies upon a field of battle are two wrestlers.
Their arms are locked; each seeks to throw the other. They
grasp at every aid; a thicket is a point of support; a corner
of a wall is a brace for the shoulder; for lack of a few sheds
to lean upon a regiment loses its footing; a depression in the
plain, a movement of the soil, a convenient cross path, a wood,
a ravine, may catch the heel of this colossus which is called an
army, and prevent him from falling. He who leaves the field
is beaten. Hence, for the responsible chief, the necessity of
examining the smallest tuft of trees and appreciating the
slightest details of contour.

Both generals had carefully studied the plain of Mont Saint
Jean, now called the plain of Waterloo. Already in the pre-

302 Les Miserables

ceding year, Wellington, with the sagacity of prescience, had
examined it as a possible site for a great battle. On this ground
and for this contest Wellington had the favourable side, Napoleon
the unfavourable. The English army was above, the French
army below.

To sketch here the appearance of Napoleon, on horseback,
glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at dawn on the
i8th of June, 1815, would be almost superfluous. Before we
point him out, everybody has seen him. This calm profile
under the little chapeau of the school of Brienne, this green
uniform, the white facings concealing the stars on his breast,
the overcoat concealing the epaulets, the bit of red sash under
the waistcoat, the leather breeches, the white horse with his
housings of purple velvet with crowned N.'s and eagles on the
corners, the Hessian boots over silk stockings, the silver spurs,
the Marengo sword, this whole form of the last Caesar lives in
all imaginations, applauded by half the world, reprobated by
the rest.

That form has long been fully illuminated; it did have a
certain traditional obscurity through which most heroes pass,
and which always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time;
but now the history is luminous and complete.

This light of history is pitiless ; it has this strange and divine
quality that, all luminous as it is, and precisely because it is
luminous, it often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance;
of the same man it makes two different phantoms, and the one
attacks and punishes the other, and the darkness of the despot
struggles with the splendour of the captain. Hence results a
truer measure in the final judgment of the nations. Babylon
violated lessens Alexander; Rome enslaved lessens Caesar;
massacred Jerusalem lessens Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant.
It is woe to a man to leave behind him a shadow which has his
form.

THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES

EVERYBODY knows the first phase of this battle; the difficult
opening, uncertain, hesitating, threatening for both armies, but
for the English still more than for the French.

It had rained all night; the ground was softened by the
shower; water lay here and there in the hollows of the plain as

Cosette 303

in basins; at some points the wheels sank in to the axles; the
horses' girths dripped with liquid mud ; had not the wheat and
rye spread down by that multitude of advancing carts filled the
ruts and made a bed under the wheels, all movement, parti-
cularly in the valleys on the side of Papelotte, would have
been impossible.

The affair opened late; Napoleon, as we have explained, had
a habit of holding all his artillery in hand like a pistol, aiming
now at one point, anon at another point of the battle, and he
desired to wait until the field-batteries could wheel and gallop
freely; for this the sun must come out and dry the ground.
But the sun did not come out. He had not now the field of
Austerlitz. When the first gun was fired, the English General
Colville looked at his watch and noted that it was thirty-five
minutes past eleven.

The battle was commenced with fury, more fury perhaps than
the emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French
at Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the
centre by hurling the brigade of Quiot upon La Haie Sainte, and
Ney pushed the right wing of the French against the left wing
of the English which rested upon Papelotte.

The attack upon Hougomont was partly a feint; tc draw
Wellington that way, to make him incline to the left; this was
the plan. This plan would have succeeded, had not the four
companies of the English Guards, and the brave Belgians of
Perponcher's division, resolutely held the position, enabling
Wellington, instead of massing his forces upon that point, to
limit himself to reinforcing them only by four additional
companies of guards, and a Brunswick battalion.

The attack of the French right wing upon Papelotte was
intended to overwhelm the English left, cut the Brussels road,
bar the passage of the Prussians, should they come, to carry
Mont Saint Jean, drive back Wellington upon Hougomont,
from thence upon Braine PAlleud, from thence upon Hal;
nothing is clearer. With the exception of a few incidents, this
attack succeeded. Papelotte was taken; La Haie Sainte
was carried.

Note a circumstance. There were in the English infantry,
particularly in Kempt's brigade, many new recruits. These
young soldiers, before our formidable infantry, were heroic;
their inexperience bore itself boldly in the affair; they did espe-
cially good service as skirmishers; the soldier as a skirmisher,
to some extent left to himself, becomes, so to speak, his own

304 Les Miserables

general; these recruits exhibited something of French invention
and French fury. This raw infantry showed enthusiasm.
That displeased Wellington.

After the capture of La Haie Sainte, the battle wavered.

There is in this day from noon to four o'clock, an obscure
interval; the middle of this battle is almost indistinct, and
partakes of the thickness of the conflict. Twilight was gather-
ing. You could perceive vast fluctuations in this mist, a giddy
mirage, implements of war now almost unknown, the flaming
colbacks, the waving sabretaches, the crossed shoulder-belts,
the grenade cartridge boxes, the dolmans of the hussars, the
red boots with a thousand creases, the heavy shakos festooned
with fringe, the almost black infantry of Brunswick united with
the scarlet infantry of England, the English soldiers with great
white circular pads on their sleeves for epaulets, the Hanoverian
light horse, with their oblong leather cap with copper bands and
flowing plumes of red horse-hair, the Scotch with bare knees
and plaids, the large white gaiters of our grenadiers; tableaux,
not strategic lines, the need of Salvator Rosa, not of Gribeauval.

A certain amount of tempest always mingles with a battle.
Quid obscurum, quid divinum. Each historian traces the parti-
cular lineament which pleases him in this hurly-burly. What-
ever may be the combinations of the generals, the shock of
armed masses has incalculable recoils in action, the two plans
of the two leaders enter into each other, and are disarranged by
each other. Such a point of the battle-field swallows up more
combatants than such another, as the more or less spongy soil
drinks up water thrown upon it faster or slower. You are
obliged to pour out more soldiers there than you thought. An
unforeseen expenditure. The line of battle waves and twists
like a thread; streams of blood flow regardless of logic; the
fronts of the armies undulate; regiments entering or retiring
make capes and gulfs: all these shoals are continually swaying
back and forth before each other ; where infantry was, artillery
comes; where artillery was, cavalry rushes up; battalions are
smoke. There was something there; look for it; it is gone;
the vistas are displaced; the sombre folds advance and recoil;
a kind of sepulchral wind pushes forwards, crowds back, swells
and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a hand to hand
fight? an oscillation. A rigid mathematical plan tells the
story of a minute, and not a day. To paint a battle needs those
mighty painters who have chaos in their touch. Rembrandt is
better than Vandermeulen. Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies

Cosette 305

at three o'clock. Geometry deceives; the hurricane alone is
true. This is what gives Folard the right to contradict Poly-
bius. We must add that there is always a certain moment
when the battle degenerates into a combat, particularises itself,
scatters into innumerable details, which, to borrow the ex-
pression of Napoleon himself, " belong rather to the biography
of the regiments than to the history of the army." The historian,
in this case, evidently has the right of abridgment. He can
only seize upon the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is
given to no narrator, however conscientious he may be, to fix
absolutely the form of this horrible cloud which is called a battle.

This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particu-
larly applicable to Waterloo.

However, in the afternoon, at a certain moment, the battle
assumed precision.

FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

TOWARDS four o'clock the situation of the English army was
serious. The Prince of Orange commanded the centre, Hill
the right wing, Picton the left wing. The Prince of Orange,
desperate and intrepid, cried to the Hollando-Belgians : Nassau I
Brunswick ! never retreat 1 Hill, exhausted, had fallen back
upon Wellington. Picton was dead. At the very moment
that the English had taken from the French the colours of the
io5th of the line, the French had killed General Picton by a
ball through the head. For Wellington the battle had two
points of support, Hougomont and La Haie Sainte ; Hougomont
still held out, but was burning ; La Haie Sainte had been taken.
Of the German battalion which defended it, forty-two men only
survived; all the officers, except five, were dead or prisoners.
Three thousand combatants were massacred in that grange.
A sergeant of the English Guards, the best boxer in England,
reputed invulnerable by his comrades, had been killed by a
little French drummer. Baring had been dislodged, Alten put
to the sword. Several colours had been lost, one belonging to
Alten's division, and one to the Luneburg battalion, borne by
a prince of the family of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch Grays were
no more; Ponsonby's heavy dragoons had been cut to pieces.
That valiant cavalry had given way before the lancers of Bro
and the cuirassiers of Travers; of their twelve hundred horses

306

Les Miserables

there remained six hundred; of three lieutenant-colonels, two
lay on the ground, Hamilton wounded, Mather killed. Pon-
sonby had fallen, pierced with seven thrusts of a lance. Gordon
was dead, Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the fifth and the
sixth, were destroyed.

Hougomont yielding, La Haie Sainte taken, there was but
one knot left, the centre. That still held; Wellington rein-
forced it. He called thither Hill who was at Merbe Braine,
and Chasse who was at Braine 1'Alleud.

The centre of the English army, slightly concave, very dense
and very compact, held a strong position. It occupied the
plateau of Mont Saint Jean, with the village behind it and in
front the declivity, which at that time was steep. At the rear
it rested on this strong stone-house, then an outlying property
of Nivelles, which marks the intersection of the roads, a sixteenth
century pile so solid that the balls ricocheted against it without
injuring it. All about the plateau, the English had cut away
the hedges here and there, made embrasures in the hawthorns,
thrust the mouth of a cannon between two branches, made
loopholes in the thickets. Their artillery was in ambush under
the shrubbery. This punic labour, undoubtedly fair in war,
which allows snares, was so well done that Haxo, sent by the
emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre the
enemy's batteries, saw nothing of it, and returned to tell
Napoleon that there was no obstacle, except the two barricades
across the Nivelles and Genappe roads. It was the season when
grain is at its height ; upon the verge of the plateau, a battalion
of Kempt's brigade, the 95th, armed with carbines, was lying
in the tall wheat.

Thus supported and protected, the centre of the Anglo-Dutch
army was well situated.

The danger of this position was the forest of Soignes, then
contiguous to the battle-field and separated by the ponds of
Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat there
without being routed; regiments would have been dissolved
immediately, and the artillery would have been lost in the
swamps. A retreat, according to the opinion of many military
men — contested by others, it is true — would have been an
Utter rout.

Wellington reinforced this centre by one of Chassis brigades,
taken from the right wing, and one of Wincke's from the left,
in addition to Clinton's division. To his English, to Halkett's
regiments, to Mitchell's brigade, to Maitland's guards, he gave

Cosette 307

as supports the infantry of Brunswick, the Nassau contingent,
Kielmansegge's Hanoverians, and Ompteda's Germans. The
right wing, as Charras says, was bent back behind the centre. An
enormous battery was faced with sand-bags at the place where
now stands what is called " the Waterloo Museum." Welling-
ton had besides, in a little depression of the grounds, Somerset's
Horse Guards, fourteen hundred. This was the other half of
that English cavalry, so justly celebrated. Ponsonby destroyed,
Somerset was left.

The battery, which, finished, would have been almost a
redoubt, was disposed behind a very low garden wall, hastily
covered with sand-bags and a broad, sloping bank of earth.
This work was not finished; they had not time to stockade it.

Wellington, anxious, but impassible, was on horseback, ai.d
remained there the whole day in the same attitude, a little in
front of the old mill of Mont Saint Jean, which is still standing,
under an elm which an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, has
since bought for two hundred francs, cut down and carried
away. Wellington was frigidly heroic. The balls rained down.
His aide-de-camp, Gordon, had just fallen at his side. Lord
Hill, showing him a bursting shell, said: My Lord, what are
your instruc tions, and what orders do you leave us, if you allow
yourself to be killed ? — To follow my example, answered Welling-
ton. To Clinton, he said laconically: Hold this spot to the last
man. The day was clearly going badly. Wellington cried to
his old companions of Talavera, Vittoria, and Salamanca: Boys !
We must not be beat : what would they say of us in England !

About four o'clock, the English line staggered backwards.
All at once only the artillery and the sharp-shooters were seen
on the crest of the plateau, the rest disappeared ; the regiments,
driven by the shells and bullets of the French, fell back into
the valley now crossed by the cow-path of the farm of Mont
Saint Jean ; a retrograde movement took place, the battle front
of the English was slipping away, Wellington gave ground.
Beginning retreat ! cried Napoleon.

VII

NAPOLEON IN GOOD HUMOUR

THE emperor, although sick and hurt in his saddle by a local
affliction, had never been in so good humour as on that day.
Since morning, his impenetrable countenance had worn a smile.

3o8

Les Miserables

On the i8th of June, 1815, that profound soul masked in marble,
shone obscurely forth. The dark-browed man of Austerlitz
was gay at Waterloo. The greatest, when foredoomed, present
these contradictions. Our joys are shaded. The perfect smile
belongs to God alone.

Ridei Ccesar, Pompeius ftebit, said the legionaries of the
Fulminatrix Legion. Pompey at this time was not to weep, but
it is certain that Caesar laughed.

From the previous evening, and in the night, at one o'clock,
exploring on horseback, in the tempest and the rain, with
Bertrand, the hills near Rossomme, and gratified to see the long
line of the English fires illuminating all the horizon from Frische-
mont to Braine 1'Alleud, it had seemed to him that destiny, for
which he had made an appointment, for a certain day upon the
field of Waterloo, was punctual; he stopped his horse, and
remained some time motionless, watching the lightning and
listening to the thunder; and this fatalist was heard to utter
in the darkness these mysterious words: " We are in accord.''
Napoleon was deceived. They were no longer in accord.

He had not taken a moment's sleep; every instant of that
night had brought him a new joy. He passed along the whole
line of the advanced guards, stopping here and there to speak
to the pickets. At half-past two, near the wood of Hougomont,
he heard the tread of a column in march; he thought for a
moment that Wellington was falling back. He said: // is the
English rear guard starting to get away. I shall take the six
thousand Englishmen who have just arrived at Ostend prisoners.
He chatted freely; he had recovered that animation of the
disembarkation of the first of March, when he showed to the
Grand Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of Gulf Juan, crying:
Well, Bertrand, there is a reinforcement already I On the night
of the i yth of June, he made fun of Wellington: This little
Englishman must have his lesson, said Napoleon. The rain
redoubled ; it thundered while the emperor was speaking.

At half-past three in the morning one illusion was gone;
officers sent out on a reconnaissance announced to him that the
enemy was making no movement. Nothing was stirring, not
a bivouac fire was extinguished. The English army was asleep.
Deep silence was upon the earth; there was no noise save in
the sky. At four o'clock, a peasant was brought to him by the
scouts; this peasant had acted as guide to a brigade of English
cavalry, probably Vivian's brigade on its way to take position
at the village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o'clock,

Cosette 309

two Belgian deserters reported to him that they had just left
their regiment, and that the English army was expecting a
battle. So much the better t exclaimed Napoleon, / would much
rather cut them to pieces than repulse them.

In the morning, he alighted in the mud, upon the high bank
at the corner of the road from Planchenoit, had a kitchen table
and a peasant's chair brought from the farm of Rossomme, sat
down, with a bunch of straw for a carpet, and spread out upon
the table the plan of the battle-field, saying to Soult: "Pretty
chequer-board ! "

In consequence of the night's rain, the convoys of provisions,
mired in the softened roads, had not arrived at dawn; the
soldiers had not slept, and were wet and fasting; but for all
this Napoleon cried out joyfully to Ney : We have ninety chances
in a hundred. At eight o'clock the emperor's breakfast was
brought. He had invited several generals. While breakfasting,
it was related, that on the night but one before, Wellington was
at a ball in Brussels, given by the Duchess of Somerset; and
Soult, rude soldier that he was, with his archbishop's face, said :
The ball is to-day. The emperor jested with Ney, who said:
Wellington will not be so simple as to wait for your majesty. This
was his manner usually. He was fond of faking, says Fleury de
Chaboulon. His character at bottom was a play fid humour, says
Gourgaud. He abounded in pleasantries, oftener grotesque than
witty, says Benjamin Constant. These gaieties of a giant are
worthy of remembrance. He called his grenadiers " the
growlers;" he would pinch their ears and would pull their
mustaches. The emperor did nothing but play tricks on us ; so
one of them said. During the mysterious voyage from the
island of Elba to France, on the 2yth of February, in the open
sea, the French brig-of-war Zephyr having met the brig Incon-
stant, on which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the
Inconstant for news of Napoleon, the emperor, who still had on
his hat the white and amaranth cockade, sprinkled with bees,
adopted by him in the island of Elba, took the speaking-trumpet,
with a laugh, and answered himself: the emperor is getting on
finely. He who laughs in this way is on familiar terms with
events ; Napoleon had several of these bursts of laughter during
his Waterloo breakfast. After breakfast, for a quarter of an
hour, he collected his thoughts ; then two generals were seated
on the bundle of straw, pen in hand, and paper on knee, and
the emperor dictated the order of battle.

At nine o'clock, at the instant when the French army, drawn

310 Les Miserables

up and set in motion in five columns, was deployed, the divi-
sions upon two lines, the artillery between the brigades, music
at the head, playing marches, with the rolling of drums and the
sounding of trumpets — mighty, vast, joyous, — a sea of casques,
sabres, and bayonets in the horizon, the emperor, excited, cried
out, and repeated: " Magnificent! magnificent! "

Between nine o'clock and half-past ten, the whole army,
which seems incredible, had taken position, and was ranged in
six lines, forming, to repeat the expression of the emperor,
" the figure of six Vs." A few moments after the formation of
the line of battle, in the midst of this profound silence, like that
at the commencement of a storm, which precedes the fight,
seeing as they filed by the three batteries of twelve pounders,
detached by his orders from the three corps of D'Erlon, Reille,
and Lobau, to commence the action by attacking Mont Saint
Jean at the intersection of the roads from Nivelles and Genappe,
the emperor struck Haxo on the shoulder, saying: There are
twenty-four pretty girls, General.

Sure of the event, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed
before him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he
had designated to erect barricades in Mont Saint Jean, as soon
as the village was carried. All this serenity was disturbed by
but a word of haughty pity; on seeing, massed at his left, at
a place where there is to-day a great tomb, those wonderful
Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, he said: " // is a pity."

Then he mounted his horse, rode forward from Rossomme,
and chose for his point of view a narrow grassy ridge, at the
right of the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his
second station during the battle. The third station, that of
seven o'clock, between La Belle Alliance and La Haie Sainte is
terrible; it is a considerable hill which can still be seen, and
behind which the guard was massed in a depression .of the plain.
About this hill the balls ricocheted over the paved road up to
Napoleon. As at Brienne, he had over his head the whistling
of balls and bullets. There have been gathered, almost upon
the spot pressed by his horse's feet, crushed bullets, old sabre
blades, and shapeless projectiles, eaten with rust. Scabra
rubigine. Some years ago, a sixty-pound shell was dug up
there, still loaded, the fuse having broken off even with the
bomb. It was at this last station that the emperor said to his
guide Lacoste, a hostile peasant, frightened, tied to a hussar's
saddle, turning around at every volley of grape, and trying to
hide behind Napoleon: Dolt, this is shameful. You will get

Cosette 3 1 1

yourself shot in the back. He who writes these lines has himself
found in the loose slope of that hill, by turning up the earth,
the remains of a bomb, disintegrated by the rust of forty-six
years, and some old bits of iron which broke like alder twigs in
his finger.

The undulations of the diversely inclined plains, which were
the theatre of the encounter of Napoleon and Wellington, are,
as everybody knows, no longer what they were on the i8th of
June, 1815. In taking from that fatal field wherewith to make
its monument, its real form was destroyed: history, discon-
certed, no longer recognises herself upon it. To glorify it, it
has been disfigured. Wellington, two years afterwards, on
seeing Waterloo, exclaimed: They have changed my battle-field.
Where to-day is the great pyramid of earth surmounted by the
lion, there was a ridge which sank away towards the Nivelles
road in a practicable slope, but which, above the Genappe road,
was almost an escarpment. The elevation of this escarpment
may be measured to-day by the height of the two great burial
mounds which embank the road from Genappe to Brussels ; the
English tomb at the left, the German tomb at the right. There
is no French tomb. For France that whole plain is a sepulchre.
Thanks to the thousands and thousands of loads of earth used
in the mound of a hundred and fifty feet high and half a mile
in circuit, the plateau of Mont St. Jean is accessible by a gentle
slope; on the day of the battle, especially on the side of La
Haie Sainte, the declivity was steep and abrupt. The descent
was there so precipitous that the English artillery did not see
the farm below them at the bottom of the valley, the centre of
the combat. On the i8th of June, 1815, the rain had gullied
out this steep descent still more; the mud made the ascent still
more difficult; it was not merely laborious, but men actually
stuck in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort
of ditch, which could not possibly have been suspected by a
distant observer.

What was this ditch? we will tell. Braine 1'Alleud is a
village of Belgium, Ohain is another. These villages, both
hidden by the curving of the ground, are connected by a road
about four miles long which crosses an undulating plain, often
burying itself in the hills like a furrow, so that at certain points
it is a ravine. In 1815, as now, this road cut the crest of the
plateau of Mont Saint jean between the two roads from Genappe
and Nivelles; only, to-day it is on a level with the plain;
whereas then it was sunk between high banks. Its two slopes

3 i 2 Les Miserables

were taken away for the monumental mound. That road was
and is still a trench for the greater part of its length; a trench
in some parts a dozen feet deep, the slopes of which are so steep
as to slide down here and there, especially in winter, after
showers. Accidents happen there. The road was so narrow at
the entrance of Braine 1'Alleud that a traveller was once crushed
by a waggon, as is attested by a stone cross standing near the
cemetery, which gives the name of the dead, Monsieur Bernard
Debrye, merchant of Brussels, and the date of the accident,
February, I637.1 It was so deep at the plateau of Mont Saint
Jean, that a peasant, Matthew Nicaise, had been crushed there
in 1783 by the falling of the bank, as another stone cross attested ;
the top of this has disappeared in the changes, but its overturned
pedestal is still visible upon the sloping bank at the left of the
road between La Haie Sainte and the farm of Mont Saint Jean.
On the day of the battle, this sunken road, of which nothing
gave warning, along the crest of Mont Saint Jean, a ditch at the
summit of the escarpement, a trench concealed by the ground,
was invisible, that is to say terrible.

VIII
THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE

ON the morning of Waterloo then, Napoleon was satisfied.

He was right; the plan of battle which he had conceived, as
we have shown, was indeed admirable.

After the battle was once commenced, its very diverse fortune,
the resistance of Hougomont, the tenacity of La Haie Sainte,
Bauduin killed, Foy put hors de combat, the unexpected wall
against which Soye's brigade was broken, the fatal blunder of
Guilleminot in having neither grenades nor powder, the miring
of the batteries, the fifteen pieces without escort cut off by
Uxbridge in a deep cut of a road, the slight effect of the bombs

1 The inscription is as follows :

DOM
CY A ETE ECRASE

PAR MALHEUR

SOUS UN CHARIOT

MONSIEUR BERNARD

DE BRYE MARCHAND

A BRUXELLE LE (illegible)

FEVRIER 1637

Cosette 3 1 3

that fell within the English lines, burying themselves in the soil
softened by the rain and only succeeding in making volcanoes
of mud, so that the explosion was changed into a splash, the
uselessness of Fire's demonstration upon Braine 1'Alleud, all this
cavalry, fifteen squadrons, almost destroyed, the English right
wing hardly disturbed, the left wing hardly moved, the strange
mistake of Ney in massing, instead of drawing out, the four
divisions of the first corps, the depth of twenty-seven ranks and
the front of two hundred men offered up in this manner to
grape, the frightful gaps made by the balls in these masses, the
lack of connection between the attacking columns, the slanting
battery suddenly unmasked upon their flank, Bourgeois, Don-
zelot, and Durutte entangled, Quiot repulsed, Lieutenant Vieux,
that Hercules sprung from the Polytechnic School, wounded at
the moment when he was beating down with the blows of an
axe the door of La Haie Sainte under the plunging fire of the
English barricade barring the turn of the road from Genappe to
Brussels, Marcognet's division, caught between infantry and
cavalry, shot down at arm's length in the wheat field by Best and
Pack, sabred by Ponsonby, his battery of seven pieces spiked,
the Prince of Saxe Weimar holding and keeping Frischemont
and Smohain in spite of Count D'Erlon, the colours of the 1051*1
taken, the colours of the 43rd taken, this Prussian Black Hussar,
brought in by the scouts of the flying column of three hundred
chasseurs scouring the country between Wavre and Planchenoit,
the disquieting things that this prisoner had said, Grouchy's
delay, the fifteen hundred men killed in less than an hour_in the
orchard of Hougomont, the eighteen hundred men fallen in still
less time around La Haie Sainte— all these stormy events,
passing like battle-clouds before Napoleon, had hardly disturbed
his countenance, and had not darkened its imperial expression
of certainty. Napoleon was accustomed to look upon war
fixedly > he never made figure by figure the tedious addition of
details; the figures mattered little to him, provided they gave
this total: Victory; though beginnings went wrong he was not
alarmed at it, he who believed himself master and possessor of
the end; he knew how to wait, believing himself beyond con-
tingency, and he treated destiny as an equal treats an equal.
He appeared to say to Fate: thou would'st not dare.

Half light and half shadow, Napoleon felt himself protected
in the right, and tolerated in the wrong. He had, or believed
that he had, a connivance, one might almost say a complicity,
with events, equivalent to the ancient invulnerability.

314 Les Miserables

However, when one has Beresina, Leipsic, and Fontainebleau
behind him, it seems as if he might distrust Waterloo. A
mysterious frown is becoming visible in the depths of the sky.

At the moment when Wellington drew back, Napoleon started
up. He saw the plateau of Mont Saint Jean suddenly laid bare,
and the front of the English army disappear. It rallied, but
kept concealed. The emperor half rose in his stirrups. The
flash of victory passed into his eyes.

Wellington hurled back on the forest of Soignes and destroyed ;
that was the final overthrow of England by France; it was
Cressy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man
of Marengo was wiping out Agincourt.

The emperor then, contemplating this terrible turn of for-
tune, swept his glass for the last time over every point of the
battle-field. His guard standing behind with grounded arms,
looked up to him with a sort of religion. He was reflecting; he
was examining the slopes, noting the ascents, scrutinising the
tuft of trees, the square rye field, the footpath; he seemed to
count every bush. He looked for some time at the English
barricades on the two roads, two large abattis of trees, that on
the Genappe road above La Haie Sainte, armed with two cannon,
which alone, of all the English artillery, bore upon the bottom
of the field of battle, and that of the Nivelles road where glistened
the Dutch bayonets of Chasse's brigade. He noticed near that
barricade the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, which
is at the corner of the cross-road toward Braine 1'Alleud. He
bent over and spoke in an under tone to the guide Lacoste. The
guide made a negative sign of the head, probably treacherous.

The emperor rose up and reflected. Wellington had fallen
back. It remained only to complete this repulse by a crushing
charge.

Napoleon, turning abruptly, sent off a courier at full speed
to Paris to announce that the battle was won.

Napoleon was one of those geniuses who rule the thunder.

He had found his thunderbolt.

He ordered Milhaud's cuirassiers to carry the plateau of Mont
Saint Jean.

Cosette 315

THE UNLOCKED FOR

THEY were three thousand five hundred. They formed a line
of half a mile. They were gigantic men on colossal horses.
There were twenty-six squadrons, and they had behind them,
as a support, the division of Lefebvre Desnouettes, the hundred
and six gendarmes d'elite, the Chasseurs of the Guard, eleven
hundred and ninety-seven men, and the Lancers of the Guard,
eight hundred and eighty lances. They wore casques without
plumes, and cuirasses of wrought iron, with horse pistols in their
holsters, and long sabre-swords. In the morning, they had
been the admiration of the whole army, when at nine o'clock,
with trumpets sounding, and all the bands playing, Veillons au
salut de V empire, they came, in heavy column, one of their
batteries on their flank, the other at their centre, and deployed
in two ranks between the Genappe road and Frischemont, and
took their position of battle in this powerful second line, so
wisely made up by Napoleon, which, having at its extreme left
the cuirassiers of Kellermann, and at its extreme right the
cuirassiers of Milhaud, had, so to speak, two wings of iron.

Aide-de-carnp Bernard brought them the emperor's order.
Ney drew his sword and placed himself at their head. The
enormous squadrons began to move.

Then was seen a fearful sight.

All this cavalry, with sabres drawn, banners waving, and
trumpets sounding, formed in column by division, descended
with an even movement and as one man — with the precision of
a bronze battering-ram opening a breach — the hill of La Belle
Alliance, sank into that formidable depth where so many men
had already fallen, disappeared in the smoke, then, rising from
this valley of shadow reappeared on the other side, still compact
and serried, mounting at full trot, through a cloud of grape
emptying itself upon them, the frightful acclivity of mud of
the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. They rose, serious, menacing,
imperturbable; in the intervals of the musketry and artillery
could be heard the sound of this colossal tramp. Being in two
divisions, they formed two columns ; Wathier's division had the
right, Delord's the left. From a distance they would be taken
for two immense serpents of steel stretching themselves towards
the crest of the plateau. That ran through the battle like a
prodigy.

316

Les Miserables

Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the grand
redoubt at La Moscowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was not
there, but Ney was there. It seemed as if this mass had become
a monster, and had but a single mind. Each squadron undu-
lated and swelled like the ring of a polyp. They could be seen
through the thick smoke, as it was broken here and there. It
was one pell-mell of casques, cries, sabres; a furious bounding
of horses among the cannon, and the flourish of trumpets, a
terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses, like the
scales of a hydra.

These recitals appear to belong to another age. Something
like this vision appeared, doubtless, in the old Orphic epics
which tell of centaurs, antique hippanthropes, those titans with
human faces, and chests like horses, whose gallop scaled Olympus,
horrible, invulnerable, sublime; at once gods and beasts.

An odd numerical coincidence, twenty-six battalions were to
receive these twenty-six squadrons. Behind the crest of the
plateau, under cover of the masked battery, the English infantry,
formed in thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, and
upon two lines — seven on the first, and six on the second — with
musket to the shoulder, and eye upon their sights, waiting calm,
silent, and immovable. They could not see the cuirassiers, and
the cuirassiers could not see them. They listened to the rising
of this tide of men. They heard the increasing sound of three
thousand horses, the alternate and measured striking of their
hoofs at full trot, the rattling of the cuirasses, the clicking of
the sabres, and a sort of fierce roar of the coming host. There
was a moment of fearful silence, then, suddenly, a long line of
raised arms brandishing sabres appeared above the crest, with
casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand faces
with grey moustaches, crying, Vive 1'empereur! All this
cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the beginning
of an earthquake.

All at once, tragic to relate, at the left of the English, and on
our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers reared with a
frightful clamour. Arrived at the culminating point of the
crest, unmanageable, full of fury, and bent upon the extermina-
tion of the squares and cannons, the cuirassiers saw between
themselves and the English a ditch, a grave. It was the sunken
road of Ohain.

It was a frightful moment. There was the ravine, unlocked
for, yawning at the very feet of the horses, two fathoms deep
between its double slope. The second rank pushed in the first,

Cosette 317

the third pushed in the second ; the horses reared, threw them-
selves over, fell upon their backs, and struggled with their feet
in the air, piling up and overturning their riders; no power to
retreat; the whole column was nothing but a projectile. The
force acquired to crush the English crushed the French. The
inexorable ravine could not yield until it was filled ; riders and
horses rolled in together pell-mell, grinding each other, making
common flesh in this dreadful gulf, and when this grave was full
of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on.
Almost a third of the Dubois' brigade sank into this abyss.

Here the loss of the battle began.

A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates, says that two
thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the
sunken road of Ohain. This undoubtedly comprises all the
other bodies thrown into this ravine on the morrow after the
battle.

Napoleon, before ordering this charge of Milhaud's cuirassiers,
had examined the ground, but could not see this hollow road,
which did not make even a wrinkle on the surface of the plateau.
Warned, however, and put on his guard by the little white
chapel which marks its junction with the Nivelles road, he
had, probably on the contingency of an obstacle, put a question
to the guide Lacoste. The guide had answered no. It may
almost be said that from this shake of a peasant's head came
the catastrophe of Napoleon.

Still other fatalities must arise.

Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? We
answer no. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of
Bliicher? No. Because of God.

For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was not in the
law of the nineteenth century. Another series of facts were
preparing in which Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of
events had long been announced.

It was time that this vast man should fall.

The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed
the equilibrium. This individual counted, of himself alone,
more than the universe besides. These plethoras of all human
vitality concentrated in a single head, the world mounting to
the brain of one man, would be fatal to civilisation if they
should endure. The moment had come for incorruptible
supreme equity to look to it. Probably the principles and
elements upon which regular gravitations in the moral order as
well as in the material depend, began to murmur. Reeking

318 Les Miserables

blood, overcrowded cemeteries, weeping mothers — these are
formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from a sur-
charge, there are mysterious meanings from the deeps which
the heavens hear.

Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, and his fall
was decreed.

He vexed God.

Waterloo is not a battle; it is the change of front of the
universe.

THE PLATEAU OF MONT SAINT JEAN

AT the same time with the ravine, the artillery was unmasked.

Sixty cannon and the thirteen squares thundered and flashed
into the cuirassiers. The brave General Delord gave the mili-
tary salute to the English battery.

All the English flying artillery took position in the squares at
a gallop. The cuirassiers had not even time to breathe. The
disaster of the sunken road had decimated, but not discouraged
them. They were men who, diminished in number, grew
greater in heart.

Wathier's column alone had suffered from the disaster;
Delord's, which Ney had sent obliquely to the left, as if he had
a presentiment of the snare, arrived entire.

The cuirassiers hurled themselves upon the English squares.

At full gallop, with free rein, their sabres in their teeth, and
their pistols in their hands, the attack began.

There are moments in battle when the soul hardens a man
even to changing the soldier into a statue, and all this flesh
becomes granite. The English battalions, desperately assailed,
did not yield an inch.

Then it was frightful.

All sides of the English squares were attacked at once. A
whirlwind of frenzy enveloped them. This frigid infantry
remained impassible. The first rank, with knee on the ground,
received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second shot them
down; behind the second rank, the cannoneers loaded their
guns, the front of the square opened, made way for an eruption
of grape, and closed again. The cuirassiers answered by rushing
upon them with crushing force. Their great horses reared,
trampled upon the ranks, leaped over the bayonets and fell,

Cosctte 319

gigantic, in the midst of these four living walls. The balls made
gaps in the ranks of the cuirassiers, the cuirassiers made breaches
in the squares. Files of men disappeared, ground down beneath
the horses' feet. Bayonets were buried in the bellies of these
centaurs. Hence a monstrosity of wounds never perhaps seen
elsewhere. The squares, consumed by this furious cavalry,
closed up without wavering. Inexhaustible in grape, they kept
up an explosion in the midst of their assailants. It was a
monstrous sight. These squares were battalions no longer, they
were craters; these cuirassiers were cavalry no longer, they
were a tempest. Each square was a volcano attacked by a
thunder-cloud; the lava fought with the lightning.

The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all,
being in the open field, was almost annihilated at the first
shock. It was formed of the 75th regiment of Highlanders.
The piper in the centre, while the work of extermination was
going on, profoundly oblivious of all about him, casting down
his melancholy eye full of the shadows of forests and lakes,
seated upon a drum, his bagpipe under his arm, was playing
his mountain airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben
Lothian, as the Greeks died remembering Argos. The sabre of
a cuirassier, striking down the pibroch and the arm which bore
it, caused the strain to cease by killing the player.

The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, lessened by the
catastrophe of the ravine, had to contend with almost the whole
of the English army, but they multiplied themselves, each man
became equal to ten. Nevertheless some Hanoverian battalions
fell back. Wellington saw it and remembered his Cavalry.
Had Napoleon, at that very moment, remembered his infantry,
he would have won the battle. This forgetfulness was his great
fatal blunder.

Suddenly the assailing cuirassiers perceived that they were
assailed. The English cavalry was upon their back. Before
them the squares, behind them Somerset; Somerset, with the
fourteen hundred dragoon guards. Somerset had on his right
Dornberg with his German light-horse, and on his left Trip,
with the Belgian carbineers. The cuirassiers, attacked front,
flank, and rear, by infantry and cavalry, were compelled to-
face in all directions. What was that to them ? They were a
whirlwind. Their valour became unspeakable.

Besides, they had behind them the ever thundering artillery.
All that was necessary in order to wound such men in the back
One of their cuirasses, with a hole in the left shoulder-plate

320 Les Miserables

made by a musket ball, is in the collection of the Waterloo
Museum.

With such Frenchmen only such Englishmen could cope.

It was no longer a conflict, it was a darkness, a fury, a giddy
vortex of souls and courage, a hurricane of sword-flashes. In
an instant the fourteen hundred horse guards were but eight
hundred; Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney
rushed up with the lancers and chasseurs of Lefebvre-Des-
nouettes. The plateau of Mont Saint Jean was taken, retaken,
taken again. The cuirassiers left the cavalry to return to the
infantry, or more correctly, all this terrible multitude wrestled
with each other without letting go their hold. The squares still
held. There were twelve assaults. Ney had four horses killed
under him. Half of the cuirassiers lay on the plateau. This
struggle lasted two hours.

The English army was terribly shaken. There is no doubt,
if they had not been crippled in their first shock by the disaster
of the sunken road, the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed
the centre, and decided the victory. This wonderful cavalry
astounded Clinton, who had seen Talavera and Badajos.
Wellington, though three-fourths conquered, was struck with
heroic admiration. He said in a low voice: " splendid ! "

The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen,
took or spiked sixty pieces of cannon, and took from the English
regiments six colours, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs
of the guard carried to the emperor before the farm of La
Belle Alliance.

The situation of Wellington was growing worse. This
strange battle was like a duel between two wounded infuriates
who, while yet fighting and resisting, lose all their blood.
Which of the two shall fall first?

The struggle of the plateau continued.

How far did the cuirassiers penetrate ? None can tell. One
thing is certain: the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his
horse were found dead under the frame of the hay-scales at
Mont Saint Jean, at the point where the four roads from
Nivelles, Genappe, La Hulpe, and Brussels meet. This horse-
man had pierced the English lines. One of the men who took
away the body still lives at Mont Saint Jean. His name is
Dehaze ; he was then eighteen years old.

Wellington felt that he was giving way. The crisis was
upon him.

The cuirassiers had not succeeded, in this sense, that the

Cosette 321

centre was not broken. All holding the plateau, nobody held
it, and in fact it remained for the most part with the English.
Wellington held the village and the crowning plain; Ney held
only the crest and the slope. On both sides they seemed rooted
in this funebral soil.

But the enfeeblement of the English appeared irremediable.
The haemorrhage of this army was horrible. Kempt, on the
left wing, called for reinforcements. " Impossible" answered
Wellington; " we must die on the spot we now occupy." Almost
at the same moment — singular coincidence which depicts the
exhaustion of both armies — Ney sent to Napoleon for infantry,
and Napoleon exclaimed : " Infantry I where does he expect me
to take them I Does he expect me to make them 1 "

However, the English army was farthest gone. The furious
onslaughts of these great squadrons with iron cuirasses and
steel breastplates had ground up the infantry. A few men
about a flag marked the place of a regiment; battalions were
now commanded by captains or lieutenants. Alten's division,
already so cut up at La Haie Sainte, was almost destroyed;
the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the rye
field along the Nivelles road; there were hardly any left of
those Dutch grenadiers who, in 1811, joined to our ranks in
Spain, fought against Wellington, and who, in 1815, rallied on
the English side, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers
was heavy. Lord Uxbridge, who buried his leg next day, had
a knee fractured. If, on the side of the French, in this struggle
of the cuirassiers, Delord, FHeritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers,
and Blancard were hors de combat, on the side of the English,
Alten was wounded, Barne was wounded, Delancey was killed,
Van Meeren was killed, Ompteda was killed, the entire staff of
Wellington was decimated, and England had the worst share in
this balance of blood. The second regiment of foot guards had
lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns;
the first battalion of the thirtieth infantry had lost twenty-four
officers and one hundred and twelve soldiers; the seventy-ninth
Highlanders had twenty-four officers wounded, eighteen officers
killed, and four hundred and fifty soldiers slain. Cumberland's
Hanoverian hussars, an entire regiment, having at its head
Colonel Hacke, who was afterwards courtmartialed and broken,
had drawn rein before the fight, and were in flight in the Forest
of Soignes, spreading the panic as far as Brussels. Carts,
ammunition-waggons, baggage-waggons, ambulances full of
wounded, seeing the French gain ground, and approach the

322 Les Miserables

forest, fled precipitately; the Dutch, sabred by the French
cavalry, cried murder ! From Vert-Coucou to Groenendael, for
a distance of nearly six miles in the direction towards Brussels,
the roads, according to the testimony of witnesses still alive,
were choked with fugitives. This panic was such that it reached
the Prince of Conde at Malines, and Louis XVIII. at Ghent.
With the exception of the small reserve drawn up in echelon
behind the hospital established at the farm of Mont Saint Jean,
and the brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur on the flank of the
left wing, Wellington's cavalry was exhausted. A number of
batteries lay dismounted. These facts are confessed by Siborne ;
and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, says even that the
Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand men.
The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips were pale. The
Austrian Commissary, Vincent, the Spanish Commissary, Olava,
present at the battle in the English staff, thought the duke was
beyond hope. At five o'clock Wellington drew out his watch,
and was heard to murmur these sombre words: Bliicher , or
night J

It was about this time that a distant line of bayonets glistened
on the heights beyond Frischemont.

Here is the turning-point in this colossal drama.

SAD GUIDE FOR NAPOLEON; GOOD GUIDE FOR BULOW

WE understand the bitter mistake of Napoleon; Grouchy hoped
for, Bliicher arriving ; death instead of life.

Destiny has such turnings. Awaiting the world's throne,
Saint Helena became visible.

If the little cowboy, who acted as guide to Bulow, Bliicher's
lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above
Frischemont rather than below Planchenoit, the shaping of
the nineteenth century would perhaps have been different.
Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo. By any
other road than below Planchenoit, the Prussian army would
have brought up at a ravine impassable for artillery, and Bulow
would not have arrived.

Now, an hour of delay, as the Prussian general Muffling
declares, and Blucher would not have found Wellington in
position; " the battle was lost."

It was time, we have seen, that Bulow should arrive. He had

Cosettc 323

bivouacked at Dion le Mont, and started on at dawn. But the
roads were impracticable, and his division stuck in the mire.
The cannon sank to the hubs in the ruts. Furthermore, he had
to cross the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre; the street
leading to the bridge had been fired by the French ; the caissons
and artillery waggons, being unable to pass between two rows of
burning houses, had to wait till the fire was extinguished. It
was noon before Bulow could reach Chapelle Saint Lambert.

Had the action commenced two hours earlier, it would have
been finished at four o'clock, and Bliicher would have fallen
upon a field already won by Napoleon. Such are these immense
chances, proportioned to an infinity, which we cannot grasp.

As early as mid-day, the emperor, first of all, with his field
glass, perceived in the extreme horizon something which fixed
his attention. He said: " I see yonder a cloud which appears
to me to be troops." Then he asked the Duke of Dalmatia:
" Soult, what do you see towards Chapelle Saint Lambert? "
The marshal, turning his glass that way, answered : " Four or
five thousand men, sire. Grouchy, of course." Meanwhile it
remained motionless in the haze. The glasses of the whole staff
studied " the cloud " pointed out by the emperor. Some said:
" They are columns halting." The most said: " It is trees."
The fact is. that the cloud did not stir. The emperor detached
Domon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre this obscure
point.

Bulow, in fact, had not moved. His vanguard was very
weak, and could do nothing. He had to wait for the bulk of
his corps d'armee, and he was ordered to concentrate his force
before entering into line; but at five o'clock, seeing Wellington's
peril, Blucher ordered Bulow to attack, and uttered these re-
markable words: " We must give the English army a breathing

spell."

Soon after the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel
deployed in front of Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince
William of Prussia debouched from the wood of Paris, Planche-
noit was in flames, and the Prussian balls began to rain down
even in the ranks of the guard in reserve behind Napoleon.

324 Les Miserables

XII

THE GUARD

THE rest is known; the irruption of a third army, the battle
thrown out of joint, eighty-six pieces of artillery suddenly
thundering forth, Pirch the First coming up with Bulow, Ziethen's
cavalry led by Bliicher in person, the French crowded back,
Marcognet swept from the plateau of Ohain, Durutte dislodged
from Papelotte, Donzelot and Quiot recoiling, Lobau taken en
echarpe, a new battle falling at night-fall upon our dismantled
regiments, the whole English line assuming the offensive and
pushed forward, the gigantic gap made in the French army,
the English grape and the Prussian grape lending mutual aid,
extermination, disaster in front, disaster in flank, the guard
entering into line amid this terrible crumbling.

Feeling that they were going to their death, they cried out:
Vive I'Empereur I There is nothing more touching in history
than this death-agony bursting forth in acclamations.

The sky had been overcast all day. All at once, at this very
moment — it was eight o'clock at night — the clouds in the
horizon broke, and through the elms on the Nivelles road
streamed the sinister red light of the setting sun. The rising
sun shone upon Austerlitz.

Each battalion of the guard, for this final effort, was com-
manded by a general. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet,
Poret de Morvan, were there. When the tall caps of the
grenadiers of the guard with their large eagle plates appeared,
symmetrical, drawn up in line, calm, in the smoke of that con-
flict, the enemy felt respect for France ; they thought they saw
twenty victories entering upon the field of battle, with wings
extended, and those who were conquerors, thinking themselves
conquered, recoiled; but Wellington cried: " Up, guards, and
at them 1 " The red regiment of English guards, lying behind
the hedges, rose up, a shower of grape riddled the tricoloured flag
fluttering about our eagles, all hurled themselves forward, and
the final carnage began. The Imperial Guard felt the army
slipping away around them in the gloom, and the vast overthrow
of the rout; they heard the sauve qui peut ! which had replaced
the vive I'Empereur ! and, with flight behind them, they held on
their course, battered more and more and dying faster and
faster at every step. There were no weak souls or cowards

Cosette 325

there. The privates of that band were as heroic as their
generals. Not a man flinched from the suicide.

Ney, desperate, great in all the grandeur of accepted death,
bared himself to every blow in this tempest. He had his horse
killed under him. Reeking with sweat, fire in his eyes, froth
upon his lips, his uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half
cut away by the sabre stroke of a horse-guard, his badge of the
grand eagle pierced by a ball, bloody, covered with mud,
magnificent, a broken sword in his hand, he said: " Come and
see how a marshal of France dies upon the field of battle I " But
in vain, he did not die. He was haggard and exasperated. He
flung this question at Drouet D'Eiion. " What 1 are you not
going to die ?" He cried out in the midst of all this artillery
which was mowing down a handful of men: "Is there nothing,
then, for me ? Oh 1 I would that all these English balls were
buried in my body I " Unhappy man ! thou wast reserved for
French bullets!

XIII
THE CATASTROPHE

THE route behind the guard was dismal.

The army fell back rapidly from all sides at once, from
Hougomont, from La Haie Sainte, from Papelotte, from
Planchenoit. The cry: Treachery! was followed by the cry:
Sauve qui pent! A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole
bends, cracks, snaps, floats, rolls, falls, crashes, hurries, plunges.
Mysterious disintegration. Ney borrows a horse, leaps upon
him, and without hat, cravat, or sword, plants himself in the
Brussels road, arresting at once the English and the French.
He endeavours to hold the army, he calls them back, he re-
proaches them, he grapples with the rout. He is swept away.
The soldiers flee from him, crying : Vive Marshal Ney I Durutte's
two regiments come and go, frightened, and tossed between the
sabres of the Uhlans and the fire of the brigades of Kempt, Best,
Pack, and Rylandt; rout is the worst of all conflicts; friends
slay each other in their flight; squadrons and battalions are
crushed and dispersed against each other, enormous foam of the
battle. Lobau at one extremity, like Reille, at the other, is
rolled away in the flood. In vain does Napoleon make walls
with the remains of the guard; in vain does he expend his
reserve squadrons in a last effort. Quiot gives way before

326

Les Miserables

Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur, Lobau before Bulow,
Moraud before Pirch, Domon and Lubervic before Prince
William of Prussia. Guyot, who had led the emperor's squad-
rons to the charge, falls under the feet of the English horse.
Napoleon gallops along the fugitives, harangues them, urges,
threatens, entreats. The mouths', which in the morning were
crying vive VEmpereur, are now agape; he is hardly recognised.
The Prussian cavalry, just come up, spring forward, fling them-
selves upon the enemy, sabre, cut, hack, kill, exterminate.
Teams rush off, the guns are left to the care of themselves;
the soldiers of the train unhitch the caissons and take the horses
to escape; waggons upset, with their four wheels in the air,
block up the road, and are accessories of massacre. They crush
and they crowd; they trample upon the living and the lead.
Arms are broken. A multitude fills roads, paths, bridges, piains,
hills, valleys, woods, choked up by this flight of forty thousand
men. Cries, despair, knapsacks and muskets cast into the rye,
passages forced at the point of the sword; no more comrades,
no more officers, no more generals; inexpressible dismay.
Ziethen sabring France at his ease. Lions become kids. Such
was this flight.

At Genappe there was an effort to turn back, to form a line,
to make a stand. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The
entrance to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of
Prussian grape, all took to flight again, and Lobau was captured.
The marks of that volley of grape are still to be seen upon the
old gable of a brick ruin at the right of the road, a short distance
before entering Genappe. The Prussians rushed into Genappe,
furious, doubtless, at having conquered so little. The pursuit
was monstrous. Bliicher gave orders to kill all. Roguet had
set this sad example by threatening with death every French
grenadier who should bring him a Prussian prisoner. Bliicher
surpassed Roguet. The general of the Young Guard, Duhesme,
caught at the door of a tavern in Genappe, gave up his sword to a
Hussar of Death, who took the sword and killed the prisoner.
The victory was completed by the assassination of the van-
quished. Let us punish, since we are history: old Bliicher dis-
graced himself. This ferocity filled the disaster to the brim.
The desperate rout passed through Genappe, passed through
Quatre Bras, passed through Sombreffe, passed through Frasnes,
passed through Thuin, passed through Charleroi, and stopped
only at the frontier. Alas ! who now was flying in such wise ?
The Grand Army.

Cosette

327

This madness, this terror, this falling to ruins of the highest
bravery which ever astonished history, can that be without
cause ? No. The shadow of an enormous right hand rests on
Waterloo. It is the day of Destiny. A power above man con-
trolled that day. Hence, the loss of mind in dismay; hence,
all these great souls yielding up their swords. Those who had
conquered Europe fell to the ground, having nothing more to
say or to do, feeling a terrible presence in the darkness. Hoc
erai in fatis. That day, the perspective of the human race
changed. Waterloo is the hinge of the nineteenth century.
The disappearance of the great man was necessary for the
advent of the great century. One, to whom there is no reply,
took it in charge. The panic of heroes is explained. In the
battle of Waterloo, there is more than a cloud, there is a meteor.
God passed over it.

In the gathering night, on a field near Genappe, Bernard and
Bertrand seized by a flap of his coat and stopped a haggard,
thoughtful, gloomy man, who, dragged thus far by the current
of the rout, had dismounted, passed the bridle of his horse under
his arm, and, with bewildered eye, was returning alone towards
Waterloo. It was Napoleon endeavouring to advance again,
mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream.

XIV

THE LAST SQUARE

A FEW squares of the guard, immovable in the flow of the rout
as rocks in running water, held out until night. Night approach-
ing, and death also, they waited this double shadow, and yielded,
unfaltering, to its embrace. Each regiment, isolated from the
others, and having no further communication with the army,
which was broken in all directions, was dying alone. They had
taken position, for this last struggle, some upon the heights of
Rossomme, others in the plain of Mont Saint Jean. There,
abandoned, conquered, terrible, these sombre squares suffered
formidable martyrdom. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland, were
dying in them.

At dusk, towards nine o'clock in the evening, at the foot of the
plateau of Mont Saint Jean, there remained but one. In this
fatal valley, at the bottom of that slope which had been climbed
by the cuirassiers, inundated now by the English masses, under

328

Les Miserables

the converging fire of the victorious artillery of the enemy,
under a frightful storm of projectiles, this square fought on.
It was commanded by an obscure officer whose name was
Cambronne. At every discharge, the square grew less, but
returned the fire. It replied to grape by bullets, narrowing in
its four walls continually. Afar off the fugitives, stopping for
a moment out of breath, heard in the darkness this dismal
thunder decreasing.

When this legion was reduced to a handful, when their flag
was reduced to a shred, when their muskets, exhausted of
ammunition, were reduced to nothing but clubs, when the pile
of corpses was larger than the group of the living, there spread
among the conquerors a sort of sacred terror about these sublime
martyrs, and the English artillery, stopping to take breath, was
silent. It was a kind of respite. These combatants had about
them, as it were, a swarm of spectres, the outlines of men on
horseback, the black profile of the cannons, the white sky seen
through the wheels and the gun-carriages; the colossal death's
head which heroes always see in the smoke of the battle was
advancing upon them, and glaring at them. They could hear in
the gloom of the twilight the loading of the pieces, the lighted
matches like tigers' eyes in the night made a circle about their
heads; all the Linstocks of the English batteries approached
the guns, when, touched by their heroism, holding the death-
moment suspended over these men, an English general, Colville,
according to some, Maitland, according to others, cried to them :
" Brave Frenchmen, surrender ! " Cambronne answered :
" Merde I "

CAMBRONNE

OUT of respect to the French reader, the finest word, perhaps,
that a Frenchman ever uttered cannot be repeated to him. We
are prohibited from embalming a sublimity in history.

At our own risk and peril, we violate that prohibition.

Among these giants, then, there was one Titan — Cambronne.

To speak that word, and then to die, what could be more
grand ! for to accept death is to die, and it is not the fault of this
man, if, in the storm of grape, he survived.

The man who won the battle of Waterloo is not Napoleon put

Cosette 329

to rout; nor Wellington giving way at four o'clock, desperate
at five ; not Blucher, who did not fight ; the man who won the
battle of Waterloo was Cambronne.

To fulminate such a word at the thunderbolt which kills you
is victory.

To make this answer to disaster, to say this to destiny, to give
this base for the future lion, to fling down this reply at the rain
of the previous night, at the treacherous wall of Hougomont, at
the sunken road of Ohain, at the delay of Grouchy, at the arrival
of Blucher, to be ironical in the sepulchre, to act so as to remain
upright after one shall have fallen, to drown in two syllables the
European coalition, to offer to kings these privities already
known to the Caesars, to make the last of words the first, by
associating it with the glory of France, to close Waterloo
insolently by a Mardi Gras, to complete Leonidas by Rabelais,
to sum up this victory in a supreme word which cannot be pro-
nounced, to lose the field, and to preserve history, after this
carnage to have the laugh on his side, is immense.

It is an insult to the thunderbolt. That attains the grandeur
of ^Eschylus.

This word of Cambronne's gives the effect of a fracture. It
is the breaking of a heart by scorn; it is an overplus of agony
in explosion. Who conquered? Wellington? No. Without
Blucher he would have been lost. Blucher? No. If Welling-
ton had not commenced, Blucher could not have finished. This
Cambronne, this passer at the last hour, this unknown soldier,
this infinitesimal of war, feels that there is there a lie in a
catastrophe, doubly bitter; and at the moment when he is
bursting with rage, he is offered this mockery — life ? How can
he restrain himself? They are there, all the kings of Europe,
the fortunate generals, the thundering Joves, they have a
hundred thousand victorious soldiers, and behind the hundred
thousand, a million ; their guns, with matches lighted, are agape ;
they have the Imperial Guard and the Grand Army under their
feet; they have crushed Napoleon, and Cambronne only
remains; there is none but this worm of the earth to protest.
He will protest. Then he seeks for a word as one seeks for a
sword. He froths at the mouth, and this froth is the word.
Before this mean and monstrous victory, before this victory
without victors, this desperate man straightens himself up, he
suffers its enormity, but he establishes its nothingness; and he
does more than spit upon it; and overwhelmed in numbers and
material strength he finds in the soul an expression — ordure.

330 Les Miserables

We repeat it, to say that, to do that, to find that, is to be the
conqueror.

The soul of great days entered into this unknown man at that
moment of death. Cambronne finds the word of Waterloo,
as Rouget de 1'Isle finds the Marseillaise, through a superior
inspiration. An effluence from the divine afflatus detaches
itself, and passes over these men, and they tremble, and the one
sings the supreme song, and the other utters the terrible cry.
This word of titanic scorn Cambronne throws down not merely
to Europe, in the name of the Empire, that would be but little ;
he throws it down to the past, in the name of the Revolution.
It is heard, and men recognise in Cambronne the old soul of the
giants. It seems as if it were a speech of Danton, or a roar of
Kleber.

To this word of Cambronne, the English voice replied : " Fire ! "
the batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen
throats went forth a final vomiting of grape, terrific; a vast
smoke, dusky white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out,
and when the smoke was dissipated, there was nothing left.
That formidable remnant was annihilated ; the guard was dead.
The four walls of the living redoubt had fallen, hardly could a
quivering be distinguished here and there among the corpses;
and thus the French legions, grander than the Roman legions,
expired at Mont Saint Jean on ground soaked in rain and blood,
in the sombre wheat-fields, at the spot where now, at four o'clock
in the morning, whistling, and gaily whipping up his horse,
Joseph passes, who drives the mail from Nivelles.

XVI

QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE?

THE battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those
who won it as to him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; 1
Bliicher sees in it only fire ; Wellington conprehends nothing of
it. Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the com-
mentaries are foggy. The former stammer, the latter falter.
Jomini separates the battle of Waterloo into four periods;
Muffling divides it into three tides of fortune ; Charras alone,
though upon some points our appreciation differs from his, has

1 " A battle ended, a day finished, false measures repaired, greater
successes assured for the morrow, all was lost by a moment of panic." —
(Napoleon, Dictations at St. Helena.)

Cosettc 331

seized with his keen glance the characteristic lineaments of that
catastrophe of human genius struggling with divine destiny.
All the other historians are blinded by the glare, and are groping
about in that blindness. A day of lightnings, indeed, the down-
fall of the military monarchy, which, to the great amazement
of kings, has dragged with it all kingdoms, the fall of force, the
overthrow of war.

In this event, bearing the impress of superhuman necessity,
man's part is nothing.

Does taking away Waterloo from Wellington and from
Blucher, detract anything from England and Germany? No.
Neither illustrious England nor august Germany is in question
in the problem of Waterloo. Thank heaven, nations are great
aside from, the dismal chances of the sword. Neither Germany,
nor England, nor France, is held in a scabbard. At this day
when Waterloo is only a clicking of sabres, above Blucher,
Germany has Goethe, and above Wellington, England has
Byron. A vast uprising of ideas is peculiar to our century, and
m this aurora England and Germany have a magnificent share.
They are majestic because they think. The higher plane which
they bring to civilisation is intrinsic to them; it comes from
themselves, and not from an accident. The advancement
which they have made in the nineteenth century does not spring
from Waterloo. It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden
growth after a victory. It is the fleeting vanity of the streamlet
swelled by the storm. Civilised nations, especially in our times,
are not exalted nor abased by the good or bad fortune of a
captain. Their specific gravity in the human race results from
something more than a combat. Their honour, thank God,
their dignity, their light, their genius, are not numbers that
heroes and conquerors, those gamblers, can cast into the lottery
of battles. Oftentimes a battle lost is progress attained. Less
glory, more liberty. The drum is silent, reason speaks. It is
the game at which he who loses, gains. Let us speak, then,
coolly of Waterloo on both sides. Let us render unto Fortune
the things that are Fortune's, and unto God the things that are
God's. What is Waterloo ? A victory? No. A prize.

A prize won by Europe, paid by France.

It was not much to put a lion there.

Waterloo moreover is the strangest encounter in history.
Napoleon and Wellington: they are not enemies, they are
opposites. Never has God, who takes pleasure in antitheses,
made a more striking contrast and a more extraordinary meeting.

332 Les Miserables

On one side, precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, retreat
assured, reserves economised, obstinate composure, imperturb-
able method, strategy to profit by the ground, tactics to balance
battalions, carnage drawn to the line, war directed watch in
hand, nothing left voluntarily to chance, ancient classic courage,
absolute correctness; on the other, intuition, inspiration, a
military marvel, a superhuman instinct; a flashing glance, a
mysterious something which gazes like the eagle and strikes like
the thunderbolt, prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all
the mysteries of a deep soul, intimacy with Destiny; river,
plain, forest, hill, commanded, and in some sort forced to obey,
the despot going even so far as to tyrannise over the battle-
field; faith in a star joined to strategic science, increasing
it, but disturbing it. Wellington was the Barreme of war,
Napoleon was its Michael Angelo, and this time genius was
vanquished by calculation.

On both sides they were expecting somebody. It was the
exact calculator who succeeded. Napoleon expected Grouchy;
he did not come. Wellington expected Blucher; he came.

Wellington] is classic war taking her revenge. Bonaparte,
in his dawn, had met her in Italy, and defeated her superbly.
The old owl fled before the young vulture. Ancient tactics had
been not only thunderstruck, but had received mortal offence ?
What was this Corsican of twenty-six? What meant this
brilliant novice who, having everything against him, nothing
for him, with no provisions, no munitions, no cannon, no shoes,
almost without an army, with a handful of men against multi-
tudes, rushed upon allied Europe, and absurdly gained victories
that were impossible? Whence came this thundering madman
who, almost without taking breath, and with the same set of the
combatants in hand, pulverised one after the other the five
armies of the Emperor of Germany, overthrowing Beaulieu upon
Alvinzi, Wurmser upon Beaulieu, Melas upon Wurmser, Mack
upon Melas? Who was this new-comer in war with the confi-
dence of destiny? The academic military school excommuni-
cated him as it ran away. Thence an implacable hatred of the
old system of war against the new, of the correct sabre against
the flashing sword, and of the chequer-board against genius.
On the 1 8th of June, 1815, this hatred had the last word, and
under Lodi, Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Marengo, Arcola,
it wrote: Waterloo. Triumph of the commonplace, grateful
to majorities. Destiny consented to this irony. In his decline,
Napoleon again found Wurmser before him, but young. Indeed,

Cosette 333

to produce Wurmser, it would have been enough to whiten
Wellington's hair.

Waterloo is a battle of the first rank won by a captain of the
second.

What is truly admirable in the battle of Waterloo is England,
English firmness, English resolution, English blood; the superb
thing which England had there — may it not displease her— is
herself. It is not her captain, it is her army.

Wellington, strangely ungrateful, declared in a letter to Lord
Bathurst that his army, the army that fought on the i8th of
June, 1815, was a " detestable army." What does this dark
assemblage of bones, buried beneath the furrows of Waterloo,
think of that?

England has been too modest in regard to Wellington. To
make Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is
but a hero like the rest. These Scotch Grays, these Horse
Guards, these regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, this
infantry of Pack and Kempt, this cavalry of Ponsonby and of
Somerset, these Highlanders playing the bagpipe under the
storm of grape, these battalions of Rylandt, these raw recruits
who hardly knew how to handle a musket, holding out against
the veteran bands of Essling and Rivoli— all that is grand.
Wellington was tenacious, that was his merit, and we do not
undervalue it, but the least of his foot-soldiers or his horsemen
was quite as firm as he. The iron soldier is as good as the Iron
Duke. For our part, all our glorification goes to the English
soldier, the English army, the English people. If trophy there
be, to England the trophy is due. The Waterloo column would
be' more just if, instead of the figure of a man, it lifted to the
clouds the statue of a nation.

But this great England will be offended at what we say here.
She has still, after her 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion.
She believes in hereditary right, and in the hierarchy. This
people, surpassed by none in might and glory, esteems itself as
a nation, not as a people. So much so that as a people they
subordinate themselves willingly, and take a Lord for a head.
Workmen, they submit to be despised; soldiers, they submit
to be whipped. We remember that at the battle of Inkerman
a sergeant who, as it appeared, had saved the army, could not be
mentioned by Lord Raglan, the English military hierarchy not
permitting any hero below the rank of officer to be spoken of
in a report.

What we admire above all, in an encounter like that of

334 Les Miserables

Waterloo, is the prodigious skill of fortune. The night's rain,
the wall of Hougomont, the sunken road of Ohain, Grouchy
deaf to cannon, Napoleon's guide who deceives him, Bulow's
guide who leads him right; all this cataclysm is wonderfully
carried out.

Taken as a whole, let us say, Waterloo was more of a massacre
than a battle.

Of all great battles, Waterloo is that which has the shortest
line in proportion to the number engaged. Napoleon, two
miles, Wellington, a mile and a half; seventy-two thousand
men on each side. From this density came the carnage.

The calculation has been made and this proportion estab-
lished: Loss of men: at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent. ;
Russians, thirty per cent. ; Austrians, forty-four per cent. At
Wagram, French, thirteen per cent.; Austrians, fourteen. At
La Moscowa, French, thirty-seven per cent.; Russians, forty-
four. At Bautzen, French, thirteen per cent.; Russians and
Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo, French, fifty-six per cent;
Allies, thirty-one. Average for Waterloo, forty-one per cent.
A hundred and forty-four thousand men; sixty thousand dead.

The field of Waterloo to-day has that calm which belongs to
the earth, impassive support of man; it resembles any other
plain.

At night, however, a sort of visionary mist arises from it, and
if some traveller be walking there, if he looks, if he listens, if
he dreams like Virgil in the fatal plain of Philippi, he becomes
possessed by the hallucination of the disaster. The terrible i8th
of June is again before him ; the artificial hill of the monument
fades away, this lion, whatever it be, is dispelled; the field of
battle resumes its reality; the lines of infantry undulate in the
plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon; the bewildered
dreamer sees the flash of sabres, the glistening of bayonets, the
bursting of shells, the awful intermingling of the thunders; he
hears, like a death-rattle from the depths of a tomb, the vague
clamour of the phantom battle; these shadows are grenadiers;
these gleams are cuirassiers; this skeleton is Napoleon; that
skeleton is Wellington; all this is unreal, and yet it clashes and
combats; and the ravines run red, and the trees shiver, and there
is fury even in the clouds, and, in the darkness, all those savage
heights, Mont Saint Jean, Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte,
Planchenoit, appear confusedly crowned with whirlwinds of
spectres exterminating each other.

Cosette 335

XVII

MUST WE APPROVE WATERLOO?

THERE exists a very respectable liberal school, which does not
hate Waterloo. We are not of them. To us Waterloo is but
the unconscious date of liberty. That such an eagle should
come from such an egg, is certainly an unlooked-for thing.

Waterloo, if we place ourselves at the culminating point of
view of the question, is intentionally a counter-revolutionary
victory. It is Europe against France ; it is Petersburg, Berlin,
and Vienna against Paris; it is the status quo against the
initiative; it is the i4th of June, 1789, attacked by the zoth
March, 1815; it is the monarchies clearing the decks for action
against indomitable French uprising. The final extinction of
this vast people, for twenty-six years in eruption, such was the
dream. It was the solidarity of the Brunswicks, the Nassaus,
the Romanoffs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Hapsburgs, with
the Bourbons. Divine right rides behind with Waterloo. It
is true that the empire having been despotic, royalty, by the
natural reaction of things, was forced to become liberal, and
also that a constitutional order has indirectly sprung from
Waterloo, to the great regret of the conquerors. The fact is,
that revolution cannot be conquered, and that being provi-
dential and absolutely decreed, it reappears continually, before
Waterloo in Bonaparte, throwing down the old thrones, after
Waterloo in Louis XVIII. granting and submitting to the
charter. Bonaparte places a postillion on the throne of Naples-
and a sergeant on the throne of Sweden, employing inequality
to demonstrate equality ; Louis XVIII. at Saint Ouen counter-
signs the declaration of the rights of man. Would you realise
what Revolution is, call it Progress; and would you realise
what Progress is, call it To-morrow. To-morrow performs its
work irresistibly, and it performs it from to-day. It always
reaches its aim through unexpected means. It employs
Wellington to make Foy, who was only a soldier, an orator.
Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again at the rostrum. Thus
progress goes on. No tool comes amiss to this workman. It
adjusts to its divine work, without being disconcerted, the
man who strode over the Alps, and the good old tottering
invalid of the Pdre Elysee. It makes use of the cripple as well
as the conqueror, the conqueror without, the cripple within.

336 Les Miserables

Waterloo, by cutting short the demolition of European thrones
by the sword, has had no other effect than to continue the
revolutionary work in another -way. The saberers have gone
out, the time of the thinkers has come. The age which Waterloo
would have checked, has marched on and pursued its course.
This inauspicious victory has been conquered by liberty.

In fine and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo;
that which smiled behind Wellington ; that which brought him
all the marshals' batons of Europe, among them, it is said, the
baton of marshal of France ; that which joyfully rolled barrows
of earth full of bones to rear the mound of the lion ; that which
has written triumphantly on that pedestal this date: June i8th,
1815; that which encouraged Bliicher sabering the fugitives;
that which, from the height of the plateau of Mont Saint Jean,
hung over France as over a prey, was Counter-revolution. It
was Counter-revolution which murmured this infamous word —
dismemberment. Arriving at Paris, it had a near view of the
crater; it felt that these ashes were burning its feet, and took
a second thought. It came back lisping of a charter.

Let us see in Waterloo only what there is in Waterloo. Of
intentional liberty, nothing. The Counter-revolution was
involuntarily liberal, as, by a corresponding phenomenon,
Napoleon was involuntarily revolutionary. On the i8th June,
1815, Robespierre on horseback was thrown from the saddle.

XVIII

RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT

END of the dictatorship. The whole European system fell.

The empire sank into a darkness which resembled that of the
expiring Roman world. It rose again from the depths, as in
the time of the Barbarians. Only, the barbarism of 1815, which
should be called by its special name, the counter-revolution,
•was short-winded, soon out of breath, and soon stopped. The
empire, we must acknowledge, was wept over, and wept over
by heroic eyes. If there be glory in the sceptre-sword, the
empire had been glory itself. It had spread over the earth all
the light which tyranny can give — a sombre light. Let us say
further — an obscure light. Compared to the real day, it is
night. This disappearance of night had the effect of an eclipse.

Louis XVIII. returned to Paris. The dancing in a ring of
the 8th of July effaced the enthusiasm of the 2oth of March.

Cosette 337

The Corsican became the antithesis of the Bearnois. The flag
of the dome of the Tuileries was white. The exile mounted the
throne. The fir table of Hartwell took its place before the
chair decorated with fleur-de-lis of Louis XIV. Men talked of
Bouvines and Fontenoy as of yesterday, Austerlitz being out of
date. The altar and the throne fraternised majestically. One
of the most unquestionably safe forms of society in the nine-
teenth century was established in France and on the Continent'.
Europe put on the white cockade. Trestaillon became famous.
The device non pluribus impar reappeared in the radiations on
the facade of the barracks of the quay of Orsay. Where there
had been an imperial guard, there was a red house. The arc
du Carrousel, — covered with awkwardly gained victories, — dis-
owned by these new times, and a little ashamed, perhaps, of
Marengo and Arcola, extricated itself from the affair by the
statue of the Duke of Angouleme. The cemetery de la Made-
leine, the terrible Potter's field of '93, was covered with marble
and jasper, the bones of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette
being in this dust. In the ditch of Vincennes, a sepulchral
column rose from the ground, recalling the fact that the Duke
of Enghien died in the same month in which Napoleon was
crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed this consecra-
tion very near the time of this death, tranquilly blessed the fall
as he had blessed the elevation. At Schcenbrunn there was a
little shadow four years old which it was seditious to call _ the
King of Rome. And these things were done, and these kings
resumed their thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a
cage, and the old regime became the new, and all the light and
shade of the earth changed place, because, in the afternoon of
a summer's day, a cowboy said to a Prussian in a wood: " Pass
this way and not that ! "

This 1815 was a sort of gloomy April. The old unhealthy and
poisonous realities took on new shapes. Falsehood espoused
1789, divine right masked itself under a charter, fictions became
constitutional, prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations,
with articlei4 hugged to the heart, put on a varnish of liberalism.
Serpents changing their skins.

Man had been at once made greater and made less by
Napoleon. The ideal, under this splendid material reign, had
received the strange name of ideology. Serious recklessness of
a great man, to turn the future into derision. The people, how-
ever, that food for cannon so fond of the cannoneer, looked for
him. Where is he? What is he doing ? " Napoleon is dead,"

338

Les Miserables

said a visitor to an invalid of Marengo and Waterloo. " He
dead I " cried the soldier ; " are you sure of that 1 " Imagination
deified this prostrate man. The heart of Europe, after Waterloo,
was gloomy. An enormous void remained long after the
disappearance of Napoleon.

Kings threw themselves into this void. Old Europe profited
by it to assume a new form. There was a Holy Alliance.
Belle Alliance the fatal field of Waterloo had already said in
advance.

In presence of and confronting this ancient Europe made
over, the lineaments of a new France began to appear. The
future, the jest of the emperor, made its appearance. It had
on its brow this star, Liberty. The ardent eyes of rising
generations turned towards it. Strange to tell, men became
enamoured at the same time of this future, Liberty, and of this
past, Napoleon. Defeat had magnified the vanquished. Bona-
parte fallen seemed higher than Bonaparte in power. Those
who had triumphed, were struck with fear. England guarded
him through Hudson Lowe, and France watched him through
Montchenu. His folded arms became the anxiety of thrones.
Alexander called him, My Wakefulness. This terror arose from
the amount of revolution he had in him. This is the explanation
and excuse of Bonapartist liberalism. This phantom made the
old world quake. Kings reigned ill at ease with the rock of
Saint Helena in the horizon.

While Napoleon was dying at Longwood, the sixty thousand
men fallen on the field of Waterloo tranquilly mouldered away,
and something of their peace spread over the world. The con-
gress of Vienna made from it the treaties of 1815, and Europe
called that the Restoration.

Such is Waterloo.

But what is that to the Infinite? All this tempest, all this
cloud, this war, then this peace, all this darkness, disturb not
for a moment the light of that infinite Eye, before which the
least of insects leaping from one blade of grass to another equals
the eagle flying from spire to spire among the towers of Notre-
Dame.

Cosette 339

XIX

THE FIELD OF BATTLE AT NIGHT

WE return, for it is a requirement of this book, to the fatal field
of battle.

On the i8th of June, 1815, the moon was full. Its light
favoured the ferocious pursuit of Blucher, disclosed the traces
of the fugitives, delivered this helpless mass to the bloodthirsty
Prussian cavalry, and aided in the massacre. Night sometimes
lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.

When the last gun had been fired the plain of Mont Saint Jean
remained deserted.

The English occupied the camp of the French; it is the usual
verification of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished.
They established their bivouac around Rossomme. The
Prussians, let loose upon the fugitives, pushed forward. Welling-
ton went to the village of Waterloo to make up his report to
Lord Bathurst.

If ever the sic vos non vobis were applicable, it is surely to this
village of Waterloo. Waterloo did nothing, and was two miles
distant from the action. Mont Saint Jean was cannonaded,
Hougomont was burned, Papelotte was burned, Planchenoit
was burned, La Haie Sainte was taken by assault, La Belle
Alliance witnessed the meeting of the two conquerors; these
names are scarcely known, and Waterloo, which had nothing to
do with the battle, has all the honour of it.

We are not of those who glorify war; when the opportunity
presents itself we describe its realities. War has frightful
beauties which we have not concealed; it has also, we must
admit, some deformities. One of the most surprising is the
eager spoliation of the dead after a victory. The day after a
battle dawns upon naked corpses.

Who does this? Who thus sullies the triumph? Whose is
this hideous furtive hand which glides into the pocket of victory ?
Who are these pickpockets following their trade in the wake
of glory? Some philosophers, Voltaire among others, affirm
that they are precisely those who have achieved the glory.
They are the same, say they, there is no exchange; those who
survive pillage those who succumb. The hero of the day is the
vampire of the night. A man has a right, after all, to despoil
in part a corpse which he has made.

34° Les Miserables

For our part we do not believe this. To gather laurels and
to steal the shoes from a dead man, seems to us impossible to
the same hand.

One thing is certain, that, after the conquerors, come the
robbers. But let us place the soldier, especially the soldier of
to-day, beyond this charge.

Every army has a train, and there the accusation should lie.
Bats, half brigand and half valet, all species of night bird
engendered by this twilight which is called war, bearers of
uniforms who never fight, sham invalids, formidable cripples,
interloping sutlers, travelling, sometimes with their wives, on
little carts and stealing what they sell, beggars offering them-
selves as guides to officers, army-servants, marauders; armies
on the march formerly — we do not speak of the present time —
were followed by all these, to such an extent that, in technical
language, they are called " camp-followers." No army and no
nation was responsible for these beings; they spoke Italian and
followed the Germans; they spoke French and followed the
English. It was by one of these wretches, a Spanish camp-
follower who spoke French, that the Marquis of Fervacques,
deceived by his Picardy gibberish, and taking him for one of us,
was treacherously killed and robbed on the very battle-field
during the night which followed the victory of Cerisoles. From
marauding came the marauder. The detestable maxim, .Live
on your enemy, produced this leper, which rigid discipline alone
can cure. There are reputations which are illusory; it is not
always known why certain generals, though they have been
great, have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers
because he tolerated pillage; the permission to do wrong forms
part of kindness; Turenne was so kind that he allowed the
Palatinate to be burned and put to the sword. There were seen
in the wake of armies more or less of marauders according as the
commander was more or less severe. Hoche and Marceau had
no camp-followers; Wellington — we gladly do him this justice
— had few.

However, during the night of the i8th of June, the dead were
despoiled. Wellington was rigid; he ordered whoever should
be taken in the act to be put to death; but rapine is persevering.
The marauders were robbing in one corner of the battle-field
while they were shooting them in another.

The moon was an evil genius on this plain.

Towards midnight a man was prowling or rather crawling
along the sunken road of Ohain. He was, to all appearance, one

Cosette 341

of those whom we have just described, neither English nor
French, peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul, attracted
by the scent of the corpses, counting theft for victory, coming to
rifle Waterloo. He was dressed in a blouse which was in part
a capote, was restless and daring, looking behind and before as
he went. Who was this man ? Night, probably, knew more of
his doings than day ! He had no knapsack, but evidently large
pockets under his capote. From time to time he stopped,
examined the plain around him as if to see if he were observed,
stooped down suddenly, stirred on the ground something silent
and motionless, then rose up and skulked away. His gliding
movement, his attitudes, his rapid and mysterious gestures,
made him seem like those twilight spectres which haunt ruins
and which the old Norman legends call the Goers.

Certain nocturnal water-birds make such motions in marshes.

An eye which had carefully penetrated all this haze, might
have noticed at some distance, standing as it were concealed
behind the ruin which is on the Nivelle road at the corner of the
route from Mont Saint Jean to Braine 1'Alleud, a sort of little
sutler's waggon, covered with tarred osiers, harnessed to a
famished jade browsing nettles through her bit, and in the
waggon a sort of woman seated on some trunks and packages.
Perhaps there was some connection between this waggon and
the prowler.

The night was serene. Not a cloud was in the zenith. What
mattered it that the earth was red, the moon retained her white-
ness. Such is the indifference of heaven. In the meadows,
branches of trees broken by grape, but not fallen, and held by
the bark, swung gently in the night wind. A breath, almost
a respiration, moved the brushwood. There was a quivering in
the grass which seemed like the departure of souls.

The tread of the patrols and groundsmen of the English camp
could be heard dimly in the distance.

Hougomont and La Haie Sainte continued to burn, making,
one in the east and the other in the west, two great flames, to
which was attached, like a necklace of rubies with two carbuncles
at its extremities, the cordon of bivouac fires of the English,
extending in an immense semicircle over the hills of the horizon.

We have spoken of the catastrophe of the road to Oham.
The heart almost sinks with terror at the thought of such a
death for so many brave men.

If anything is frightful, if there be a reality which surpasses
dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun, to be in full possession

342 Les Miserables

of manly vigour, to have health and joy, to laugh sturdily, to
rush towards a glory which dazzlingly invites you on, to feel a
very pleasure in respiration, to feel your heart beat, to feel
yourself a reasoning being, to speak, to think, to hope, to love;
to have mother, to have wife, to have children, to have sunlight,
and suddenly, in a moment, in less than a minute, to feel your-
self buried in an abyss, to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed,
to see the grain, the flowers, the leaves, the branches, to be able
to seize upon nothing, to feel your sword useless, men under
you, horses over you, to strike about you in vain, your bones
broken by some kick in the darkness, to feel a heel which makes
your eyes leap from their sockets, to grind the horseshoes with
rage in your teeth, to stifle, to howl, to twist, to be under all
this, and to say: just now I was a living man!

There, where this terrible death-rattle had been, all was now
silent. The cut of the sunken road was filled with horses and
riders inextricably heaped together. Terrible entanglement.
There were no longer slopes to the road; dead bodies filled it
even with the plain, and came to the edge of the banks like a
well-measured bushel of barley. A mass of dead above, a river
of blood below — such was this road on the evening of the i8th
of June, 1815. The blood ran even to the Nivelles road, and
oozed through in a large pool in front of the abattis of trees,
which barred that road, at a spot which is still shown. It was,
it will be remembered, at the opposite point, towards the road
from Genappe, that the burying of the cuirassiers took place.
The thickness of the mass of bodies was proportioned to the
depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at a spot where
it became shallower, over which Delord's division had passed,
this bed of death became thinner.

The night prowler which we have just introduced to the
reader went in this direction. He ferreted through this
immense grave. He looked about. He passed an inde-
scribably hideous review of the dead. He walked with his feet
in blood.

Suddenly he stopped.

A few steps before him, in the sunken road, at a point where
the mound of corpses ended, from under this mass of men and
horses appeared an open hand, lighted by the moon.

This hand had something upon a finger which sparkled; it
was a gold ring.

The man stooped down, remained a moment, and when he
rose again there was no ring upon that hand.

Cosette 343

He did not rise up precisely; he remained in a sinister and
startled attitude, turning his back to the pile of dead, scruti-
nising the horizon, on his knees, all the front of his body being
supported on his two fore-fingers, his head raised just enough to
peep above the edge of the hollow road. The four paws of the
jackal are adapted to certain actions.

Then, deciding upon his course, he arose.

At this moment he experienced a shock. He felt that he was
held from behind.

He turned ; it was the open hand, which had closed, seizing
the lappel of his capote.

An honest man would have been frightened. This man began
to laugh.

" Oh," said he, " it's only the dead man. I like a ghost
better than a gendarme."

However, the hand relaxed and let go its hold. Strength is
soon exhausted in the tomb.

"Ah ha! " returned the prowler, " is this dead man alive?
Let us see."

He bent over again, rummaged among the heap, removed
whatever impeded him, seized the hand, laid hold of the arm,
disengaged the head, drew out the body, and some moments
after dragged into the shadow of the hollow road an inanimate
man, at least one who was senseless. It was a cuirassier, an
officer; an officer, also, of some rank; a great gold epaulet
protruded from beneath his cuirass, but he had no casque. A
furious sabre cut had disfigured his face, where nothing but
blood was to be seen. It did not seem, however, that he had
any limbs broken; and by some happy chance, if the word is
possible here, the bodies were arched above him in such a way
as to prevent his being crushed. His eyes were closed.

He had on his cuirass the silver cross of the Legion of Honour.

The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared in one of
the gulfs which he had under his capote.

After which he felt the officer's fob, found a watch there, and
took it. Then he rummaged in his vest and found a purse,
which he pocketed.

When he had reached this phase of the succour he was lending
the dying man, the officer opened his eyes.

" Thanks," said he feebly.

The rough movements of the man handling him, the coolness
of the night, and breathing the fresh air freely, had roused him
from his lethargy.

344 Les Miserables

The prowler answered not. He raised his head. The sound
of a footstep could be heard on the plain ; probably it was some
patrol who was approaching.

The officer murmured, for there were still signs of suffering in
his voice :

" Who has gained the battle? "

" The English," answered the prowler.

The officer replied :

" Search my pockets. You will there find a purse and a
watch. Take them."

This had already been done.

The prowler made a pretence of executing the command, and
said:

" There is nothing there."

"I have been robbed," replied the officer; "I am sorry.
They would have been yours."

The step of the patrol became more and more distinct.

" Somebody is coming," said the prowler, making a move-
ment as if he would go.

The officer, raising himself up painfully upon one arm, held
him back.

" You have saved my life. Who are you ? "

The prowler answered quick and low:

" I belong, like yourself, to the French army. I must go. If
I am taken I shall be shot. I have saved your life. Help your-
self now."

' What is your grade? "
' Sergeant."

' What is your name ? "
' Thenardier."

' I shall not forget that name," said the officer. " And you,
remember mine. My name is Pontmercy."

BOOK SECOND— THE SHIP ORION

NUMBER 24601 BECOMES NUMBER 9430

JEAN VALJEAN has been retaken.

We shall be pardoned for passing rapidly over the painful
details. We shall merely reproduce a couple of items published
in the newspapers of that day, some few months after the
remarkable events that occurred at M sur M .

The articles referred to are somewhat laconic. It will be
remembered that the Gazette des Tribunaux had not yet been
established.

We copy the first from the Drapeati Blanc. It is dated the
25th of July, 1823:

" A district of the Pas-de-Calais has just been the scene of
an extraordinary occurrence. A stranger in that department,
known as Monsieur Madeleine, had, within a few years past,
restored, by means of certain new processes, the manufacture
of jet and black glass ware — a former local branch of industry.
He had made his own fortune by it, and, in fact, that of the
entire district. In acknowledgment of his services he had
been appointed mayor. The police has discovered that Monsieur
Madeleine was none other than an escaped convict, condemned
in 1796 for robbery, and named Jean Valjean. This Jean
Valjean has been sent back to the galleys. It appears that
previous to his arrest, he succeeded in withdrawing from
Laffitte's a sum amounting to more than half a million which
he had deposited there, and which it is said, by the way, he had
very legitimately realised in his business. Since his return to
the galleys at Toulon, it has been impossible to discover where
Jean Valjean concealed this money."

The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is
taken from the Journal de Paris of the same date:

" An old convict, named Jean Valjean, has recently been
brought before the Var Assizes, under circumstances calculated
to attract attention. This villain had succeeded in eluding the
vigilance of the police; he had changed his name, and had even

345

346

Les Miserables

been adroit enough to procure the appointment of mayor in one
of our small towns in the North. He had established in this
town a very considerable business, but was, at length, unmasked
and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the public
authorities. He kept, as his mistress, a prostitute, who died of
the shock at the moment of his arrest. This wretch, who is
endowed with herculean strength, managed to escape, but, three
or four days afterwards, the police retook him, in Paris, just as he
was getting into one of the small vehicles that ply between the
capital and the village of Montfermeil (Seine-et-Oise). It is
said that he had availed himself of the interval of these three or
four days of freedom, to withdraw a considerable sum deposited
by him with one of our principal bankers. The amount is
estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. According
to the minutes of the case, he has concealed it in some place
known to himself alone, and it has been impossible to seize it;
however that may be, the said Jean Valjean has been brought
before the assizes of the Department of the Var under indict-
ment for an assault and robbery on the high road committed vi
et armis some eight years ago on the person of one of those
honest lads who, as the patriarch of Ferney has written in
immortal verse,

. . . De Savoie nrrivent tous les ans,
Et dont la main legerement essuie
Ces longs canaux engorges par la suie.1

This bandit attempted no defence. It was proven by the able
and eloquent representative of the crown that the robbery was
shared in by others, and that Jean Valjean formed one of a band
of robbers in the South. Consequently, Jean Valjean, being
found guilty, was condemned to death. The criminal refused
to appeal to the higher courts, and the king, in his inexhaustible
clemency, deigned to commute his sentence to that of hard
labour in prison for life. Jean Valjean was immediately for-
warded to the galleys at Toulon."

It will not be forgotten that Jean Valjean had at M sur

M certain religious habits. Some of the newspapers and,

among them, the Constitutionnel, held up this commutation as
a triumph of the clerical party.

Jean Valjean changed his number at the galleys. He became
9430.

While we are about it, let us remark, in dismissing the subject,

1 ... Who come from Savoy every year,

And whose hand deftly wipes out

Those long channels choked up with soot.

Cosette 347

that with M. Madeleine, the prosperity of M sur M

disappeared ; all that he had foreseen, in that night of fever and
irresolution, was realised; he gone, the soul was gone. After
his downfall, there was at M sur M that egotistic dis-
tribution of what is left when great men have fallen — that fatal
carving up of prosperous enterprises which is daily going on,
out of sight, in human society, and which history has noted but
once, and then, because it took place after the death of Alexander.
Generals crown themselves kings; the foremen, in this case,
assumed the position of manufacturers. Jealous rivalries arose.
The spacious workshops of M. Madeleine were closed ; the build-
ing fell into ruin, the workmen dispersed. Some left the country,
others abandoned the business. From that time forth, every-
thing was done on a small, instead of on the large scale, and for
gain rather than for good. No longer any centre; competition
on all sides, and on all sides venom. M. Madeleine had ruled
and directed everything. He fallen, every man strove for
himself; the spirit of strife succeeded to the spirit of organisa-
tion, bitterness to cordiality, hatred of each against each instead
of the good will of the founder towards all ; the threads knitted
by M. Madeleine became entangled and were broken ; the work-
manship was debased, the manufacturers were degraded, con-
fidence was killed; customers diminished, there were fewer
orders, wages decreased, the shops became idle, bankruptcy
followed. And, then, there was nothing left for the poor. All
that was there disappeared.

Even the state noticed that some one had been crushed, in
some direction. Less than four years after the decree of the
court of assizes establishing the identity of M. Madeleine and
Jean Valjean, for the benefit of the galleys, the expense of

collecting the taxes was doubled in the district of M sur

M ; and M. de Villele remarked the fact, on the floor of the

Assembly, in the month of February, 1827.

IN WHICH A COUPLE OF LINES WILL BE READ WHICH
CAME, PERHAPS, FROM THE EVIL ONE

BEFORE proceeding further, it will not be amiss to relate, in
some detail, a singular incident which took place, about the
same time, at Montfermeil, and which, perhaps, does not fall in
badly with certain conjectures of the public authorities.

3+8

Les Miserables

There exists, in the neighbourhood of Montfermeil, a very
ancient superstition, all the more rare and precious from the
fact that a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an
aloe tree in Siberia. Now, we are of those who respect anything
in the way of a rarity. Here, then, is the superstition of Mont-
fermeil: they believe, there, that the Evil One has, from time
immemorial, chosen the forest as the hiding-place for his
treasure. The good wives of the vicinity affirm that it is no
unusual thing to meet, at sundown, in the secluded portions of
the woods, a black-looking man, resembling a waggoner or wood-
cutter, shod in wooden shoes, clad in breeches and sack of
coarse linen, and recognisable from the circumstances that,
instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns upon his head.
That certainly ought to render him recognisable. This man is
constantly occupied in digging holes. There .are three ways of
dealing when you meet him.

The first mode is to approach the man and speak to him.
Then you perceive that the man is nothing but a peasant, that
he looks black because it is twilight, that he is digging no hole
whatever, but is merely cutting grass for his cows; and that
what had been taken for horns are nothing but his pitchfork
which he carries on his back, and the prongs of which, thanks to
the night perspective, seemed to rise from his head. You go
home and die within a week. The second method is to watch
him, to wait until he has dug the hole, closed it up, and gone
away; then, to run quickly to the spot, to open it and get the
" treasure " which the black-looking man has, of course, buried
there. In this case, you die within a month. The third
manner is not to speak to the dark man nor even to look at him,
and to run away as fast as you can. You die within the year.

As all three of these methods have their drawbacks, the
second, which, at least, offers some advantages, among others
that of possessing a treasure, though it be but for a month, is the
one generally adopted. Daring fellows, who never neglect a
good chance, have, therefore, many times, it is asseverated,
reopened the holes thus dug by the black-looking man, and tried
to rob the Devil. It would appear, however, that it is not a very
good business — at least, if we are to believe tradition, and, more
especially, two enigmatic lines in barbarous Latin left us, on
this subject, by a roguish Norman monk, named Tryphon, who
dabbled in the black art. This Tryphon was buried in the
abbey of St. Georges de Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads are
produced from his grave.

Cosette 349

Well then, the treasure-seeker makes tremendous efforts, for
the holes referred to are dug, generally, very deep; he sweats,
he digs, he works away all night, for this is done in the night-
time ; he gets his clothes wet, he consumes his candle, he hacks
and breaks his pickaxe, and when, at length, he has reached the
bottom of the hole, when he has put his hand upon the " treasure/'
what does he find ? What is this treasure of the Evil One ? A
penny — sometimes a crown ; a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding corpse,
sometimes a spectre twice folded like a sheet of paper in a port-
folio, sometimes nothing. This is what seems to be held forth
to the indiscreet and prying by the lines of Tryphon:

Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca,

As, nummos, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque.

It appears that, in our time, they find in addition sometimes
a powder-horn with bullets, sometimes an old pack of brown
and greasy cards which have evidently been used by the Devil.
Tryphon makes no mention "of these articles, as Tryphon lived
in the twelfth century, and it does not appear that the Evil One
had wit enough to invent powder in advance of Roger Bacon or
cards before Charles VI.

Moreover, whoever plays with these cards is sure to lose all
he has, and as to the powder in the flask, it has the peculiarity
of bursting your gun in your face.

Now, very shortly after the time when the authorities took it
into their heads that the liberated convict Jean Valjean had,
during his escape of a few days' duration, been prowling about
Montfermeil, it was remarked, in that village, that a certain old
road-labourer named Boulatruelle had " a fancy " for the woods.
People in the neighbourhood claimed to know that Boulatruelle
had been in the galleys; he was under police surveillance, and,
as he could find no work anywhere, the government employed
him at half wages as a mender on the cross-road from Gagny to
Lagny.

This Boulatruelle was a man in bad odour with the people of
the neighbourhood; he was too respectful, too humble, prompt
to doff his cap to everybody ; he always trembled and smiled in
the presence of the gendarmes, was probably in secret connection
with robber-bands, said the gossips, and suspected of lying-in
wait in the hedge corners, at night-fall. He had nothing in his
favour except that he was a drunkard.

What had been observed was this :

For some time past, Boulatruelle had left off his work at stone-
breaking and keeping the road in order, very aarly, and had

35° Les Miserables

gone into the woods with his pick. He would be met towards
evening in the remotest glades and the wildest thickets, having
the appearance of a person looking for something and, some-
times, digging holes. The good wives who passed that way
took him at first for Beelzebub, then they recognised Boula-
truelle, and were by no means reassured. These chance meetings
seemed greatly to disconcert Boulatruelle. It was clear that he
was trying to conceal himself, and that there was something
mysterious in his operations.

The village gossips said : — " It's plain that the Devil has been
about, Boulatruelle has seen him and is looking for his treasure.
The truth is, he is just the fellow to rob the Evil One." — The
Voltairians added: " Will Boulatruelle catch the Devil or the
Devil catch Boulatruelle?" — The old women crossed them-
selves very often.

However, the visits of Boulatruelle to the woods ceased and
he recommenced his regular labour on the road. People began
to talk about something else.

A few, however, retained their curiosity, thinking that there
might be involved in the affair, not the fabulous treasures of
the legend, but some goodly matter more substantial than the
Devil's bank-bills, and that Boulatruelle had half spied out the
secret. The worst puzzled of all were the schoolmaster and the
tavern-keeper, Thenardier, who was everybody's friend, and
who had not disdained to strike up an intimacy with even
Boulatruelle.

" He has been in the galleys," said Thenardier. " Good
Lord ! nobody knows who is there or who may be there ! "

One evening, the schoolmaster remarked that, in old times,
the authorities would have inquired into what Boulatruelle was
about in the woods, and that he would have been compelled to
speak — even put to torture, if needs were — and that Boula-
truelle would not have held out, had he been put to the question
by water, for example.

" Let us put him to the wine question," said Th^nardier.

So they made up a party and plied the old roadsman with
drink. Boulatruelle drank enormously, but said little. He
combined with admirable art and in masterly proportions the
thirst of a guzzler with the discretion of a judge. However, by
dint of returning to the charge and by putting together and
twisting the obscure expressions that he did let fall, Thenardier
and the schoolmaster made out, as they thought, the following:

One morning about daybreak as he was going to his work,

Cosette 351

Boulatruelle had been surprised at seeing under a bush in a
corner of the wood, a pickaxe and spade, as one would say,
hidden there. However, he supposed that they were the pick
and spade of old Six-Fours, the water-carrier, and thought no
more about it. But, on the evening of the same day, he had
seen, without being seen himself, for he was hidden behind a
large tree, " a person who did not belong at all to that region,
and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew very well " — or, as Thenardier
translated it, " an old comrade at the galleys " — turn off from the
high road towards the thickest part of the wood. Boulatruelle
obstinately refused to tell the stranger's name. This person
carried a package, something square, like a large box or a small
trunk. Boulatruelle was surprised. Seven or eight minutes,
however, elapsed before it occurred' to him to follow the
" person." But he was too late. The person was already in
the thick woods, night had come on, and Boulatruelle did not
succeed in overtaking him. Thereupon he made up his mind to
watch the outskirts of the wood. " There was a moon." Two
or three hours later, Boulatruelle saw this person come forth
again from the wood, this time carrying now not the little trunk
but a pick and a spade. Boulatruelle let the person pass un-
molested, because, as he thought to himself, the other was three
times as strong as he, was armed with a pickaxe, and would
probably murder him, on recognising his countenance and see-
ing that he, in turn, was recognised. Touching display of feel-
ing in two old companions unexpectedly meeting! But the
pick and the spade were a ray of light to Boulatruelle; he
hastened to the bushes, in the morning, and found neither one
nor the other. He thence concluded that this person, on enter-
ing the wood, had dug a hole with his pick, had buried the
chest, and had, then, filled up the hole with his spade. Now,
as the chest was too small to contain a corpse, it must contain
money; hence his continued searches. Boulatruelle had ex-
plored, sounded, and ransacked the whole forest, and had
rummaged every spot where the earth seemed to have been
freshly disturbed. But all in vain.

He had turned up nothing. Nobody thought any more
about it, at Montfermeil, excepting a few good gossips, who
said: "Be sure the road-labourer of Gagny didn't make all
that fuss for nothing : the devil was certainly there."

352 Les Miserables

III

SHOWING THAT THE CHAIN OF THE IRON RING MUST NEEDS
HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATION TO BE
THUS BROKEN BY ONE BLOW OF THE HAMMER

TOWARDS the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the in-
habitants of Toulon saw coming back into their port, in conse-
quence of heavy weather, and in order to repair some damages,
the ship Orion, which was at a later period employed at Brest as
a vessel of instruction, and which then formed a part of the
Mediterranean squadron. This ship, crippled as she was, for
the sea had used her roughly, produced some sensation on
entering the roadstead. ' She flew I forget what pennant, but it
entitled her to a regular salute of eleven guns, which she re-
turned shot for shot : in all twenty -two. It has been estimated
that in salutes, royal and military compliments, exchanges of
courteous hubbub, signals of etiquette, roadstead and citadel
formalities, risings and settings of the sun saluted daily by all
fortresses and all vessels of war, the opening and closing of
gates, etc., etc., the civilised world, in every part of the globe,
fires off, daily, one hundred and fifty thousand useless cannon
shots. At six francs per shot, that would amount to nine
hundred thousand francs per day, or three hundred millions
per year, blown off in smoke. This is only an item. In the
meanwhile, the poor are dying with hunger.

The year 1823 was what the Restoration has called the " time
of the Spanish War."

That war comprised many events in one, and no small number
of singular things. It was a great family affair of the Bourbons;
the French branch aiding and protecting the branch at Madrid,
that is to say, performing the duties of seniority; an apparent
return to our national traditions, mixed up with subserviency,
and cringing to the cabinets of the North; the Due d'Angou-
leme, dubbed by the liberal journals the hero of Andujar, re-
pressing, with a triumphal attitude — rather contradicted by his
peaceful mien — the old and very real terrorism of the Holy
Office, in conflict with the chimerical terrorism of the Liberals;
sans-culottes revived, to the great alarm of all the old dowagers,
under the name of descamisados ; monarchists striving to
impede progress, which they styled anarchy ; the theories of '89
rudely interrupted in their undermining advances; a halt from
all Europe, intimated to the French idea of revolution, making

Cosette 353

its tour of the globe; side by side with the son of France,
general-in-chief, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles
Albert, enlisting in this crusade of the kings against the peoples,
as a volunteer, with a grenadier's epaulets of red wool; the
soldiers of the empire again betaking themselves to the field,
but after eight years of rest, grown old, gloomy, and under the
white cockade ; the tricolour displayed abroad by a heroic hand-
ful of Frenchmen, as the white flag had been at Coblentz, thirty
years before; monks mingling with our troopers; the spirit of
liberty and of innovation reduced by bayonets; principles
struck dumb by cannon-shot; France undoing by her arms
what she had done with her mind; to cap the climax, the
leaders on the other side sold, their troops irresolute; cities
besieged by millions of money; no military dangers, and yet
some explosions possible, as is the case in every mine entered
and taken by surprise; but little blood shed, but little honour
gained; shame for a few, glory for none. Such was this war,
brought about by princes who descended from Louis XIV., and
carried on by generals who sprang from Napoleon. It had this
wretched fate, that it recalled neither the image of a great war
nor of a great policy.

A few feats of arms were serious affairs; the taking of Tro-
cadero, among others, was a handsome military exploit; but,
taken all in all, we repeat, the trumpets of this war emit a
cracked and feeble sound, the general appearance of it was
suspicious, and history approves the unwillingness of France to
father so false a triumph. It seemed clear that certain Spanish
officers intrusted with the duty of resistance, yielded too easily,
the idea of bribery was suggested by a contemplation of the
victory; it appeared as if the generals rather than the battles
had been won, and the victorious soldier returned humiliated.
It was war grown petty indeed, where you could read Bank of
France on the folds of the flag.

Soldiers of the war of 1808, under whose feet Saragossa had so
terribly crumbled, knit their brows at this ready surrender of
fastnesses and citadels, and regretted Palafox. It is the mood
of France to prefer to have before her a Rostopchine rather
than a Ballesteros.

In a still graver point of view, which it is well to urge, too,
this war, which broke the military spirit of France, fired the
democratic spirit with indignation. It was a scheme of subj uga-
tion. In this campaign, the object held out to the French
soldier, son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for the

354 Les Miserables

neck of another. Hideous contradiction. France exists to
arouse the soul of the peoples, not to stifle it. Since 1792, all
the revolutions of Europe have been but the French Revolu-
tion: liberty radiates on every side from France. That is a
fact as clear as noonday. Blind is he who does not see it!
Bonaparte has said it.

The war of 1823, an outrage on the generous Spanish nation,
was, at the same time, an outrage on the French Revolution.
This monstrous deed of violence France committed, but by
compulsion; for, aside from wars of liberation, all that armies
do they do by compulsion. The words passive obedience tell
the tale. An army is a wondrous masterpiece of combination,
in which might is the result of an enormous sum-total of utter
weakness. Thus only can we explain a war waged by humanity
against humanity, in despite of humanity.

As to the Bourbons, the war of 1823 was fatal to them. They
took it for a success. They did not see what danger there is in
attempting to kill an idea by a military watchword. In their
simplicity, they blundered to the extent of introducing into their
establishment, as an element of strength, the immense enfeeble-
ment of a crime. The spirit of ambuscade and lying in wait
entered into their policy. The germ of 1830 was in 1823. The
Spanish campaign became in their councils an argument on
behalf of violent measures and intrigues in favour of divine
right. France having restored el rey neto in Spain, could cer-
tainly restore the absolute monarchy at home. They fell into
the tremendous error of mistaking the obedience of the soldier
for the acquiescence of the nation. That fond delusion ruins
thrones. It will not do to fall asleep either in the shade of a
upas tree or in the shadow of an army.

But let us return to the ship Orion.

During the operations of the army of the Prince, command-
ing-in-chief, a squadron cruised in the Mediterranean. We
have said that the Orion belonged to that squadron, and that
she had been driven back by stress of weather to the port of
Toulon.

The presence of a vessel of war in port has about it a certain
influence which attracts and engages the multitude. It is
because it is something grand, and the multitude like what is
imposing.

A ship-of-the-line is one of the most magnificent struggles of
human genius with the forces of nature.

A vessel of the line is composed of the heaviest, and at the

Cosette 355

same time the lightest materials, because she has to contend,
at one and the same time, with the three forms of matter, the
solid, the liquid, and the fluid. She has eleven claws of iron to
grasp the rock at the bottom of the sea, and more wings and
feelers than the butterfly to catch the breezes in the clouds.
Her breath goes forth through her hundred and twenty guns as
through enormous trumpets, and haughtily answers the thunder-
bolt. Ocean strives to lead her astray in the frightful sameness
of his billows, but the ship has her compass, which is her soul,
always counselling her and always pointing towards the north.
In dark nights, her lanterns take the place of the stars. Thus,
then, to oppose the wind, she has her ropes and canvas ; against
the water her timber; against the rock her iron, her copper,
and her lead; against the darkness, light; against immensity,
needle.

Whoever would form an idea of all these gigantic proportions,
the aggregate of which constitutes a ship-of-the-line, has but
to pass under one of the covered ship-houses, six stories high,
at Brest or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are
seen there under glass cases, so to speak. That colossal beam
is a yard ; that huge column of timber lying on the ground and
reaching out of sight is the mainmast. Taking it from its root
in the hold to its summit in the clouds, it is sixty fathoms long,
and is three feet in diameter at its base. The English main-
mast rises two hundred and seventeen feet above the water-line.
The navy of our fathers used cables, ours uses chains. Now
the mere coil of chains of a hundred-gun ship is four feet high,
twenty feet broad, and eight feet thick. And for the construc-
tion of this vessel, how much timber is required? It is a
floating forest.

And yet, be it remembered, that we are here speaking only of
the war vessel of some forty years ago, the mere sailing craft ;
steam, then in its infancy, has, since that time, added new
wonders to this prodigy called a man-of-war. At the present
day, for example, the mixed vessel, the screw-propeller, is a
surprising piece of mechanism moved by a spread of canvas
measuring four thousand square yards of surface, and by a
steam-engine of twenty-five hundred horse power.

Without referring to these fresher marvels, the old-fashioned
ship of Christopher Columbus and of De Ruyter is one of the
noblest works of man. It is exhaustless in force as the breath
of infinitude; it gathers up the wind in its canvas, it is firmly
fixed in the immense chaos of the waves, it floats and it reigns.

35 6 Les Miserables

But a moment comes, when the white squall breaks that
sixty-foot yard like a straw; and when the wind flaw bends
that four hundred foot mast like a reed; when that anchor,
weighing its tons upon tons, is twisted in the maw of the wave
like the angler's hook in the jaws of a pike; when those monster
guns utter plaintive and futile roarings which the tempest
whirls away into space and night, when all this might and all
this majesty are engulfed in a superior might and majesty.

Whenever immense strength is put forth only to end in
immense weakness, it makes men meditate. Hence it is that,
in seaports, the curious, without themselves knowing exactly
why, throng about these wonderful instruments of war and
navigation.

Every day, then, from morning till night, the quays, the
wharves, and the piers of the port of Toulon were covered with
a throng of saunterers and idlers, whose occupation consisted in
gazing at the Orion.

The Orion was a ship that had long been in bad condition.
During her previous voyages, thick layers of shellfish had
gathered on her bottom to such an extent as to seriously impede
her progress ; she had been put on the dry-dock the year before,
to be scraped, and then she had gone to sea again. But this
scraping had injured her fastening.

In the latitude of the Balearic Isles, her planking had loosened
and opened, and as there was in those days no copper sheathing,
the ship had leaked. A fierce equinoctial came on, which had
stove in the larboard bows and a porthole, and damaged the
fore-chain-wales. In consequence of these injuries, the Orion
had put back to Toulon.

She was moored near the arsenal. She was in commission,
and they were repairing her. The hull had not been injured on
the starboard side, but a few planks had been taken off here
and there, according to custom, to admit the air to the frame-
work.

One morning, the throng which was gazing at her witnessed
an accident.

The crew were engaged in furling sail. The topman, whose
duty it was to take in the starboard upper corner of the main
top-sail, lost his balance. He was seen tottering; the dense
throng assembled on the wharf of the arsenal uttered a cry,
the man's head overbalanced his body, and he whirled over the
yard, his arms outstretched towards the deep ; as he went over,
he grasped the man-ropes, first with one hand, and then with

Cosette 357

other, and hung suspended in that manner. The sea lay
far below him at a giddy depth. The shock of his fall had
given to the man-ropes a violent swinging motion, and the poor
fellow hung dangling to and fro at the end of this line, like
a stone in a sling.

To go to his aid was to run a frightful risk. None of the
crew, who were all fishermen of the coast recently taken into
service, dared attempt it. In the meantime, the poor topman
was becoming exhausted; his agony could not be seen in his
countenance, but his increasing weakness could be detected in
the movements of all his limbs. His arms twisted about in
horrible contortions. Every attempt he made to reascend only
increased the oscillations of the man-ropes. He did not cry
out, for fear of losing his strength. All were now looking for-
ward to the moment when he should let go of the rope, and, at
instants, all turned their heads away that they might not see
him fall. There are moments when a rope's end, a pole, the
branch of a tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see
a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.

Suddenly, a man was discovered clambering up the rigging
with the agility of a wildcat. This man was clad in red— it
was a convict; he wore a green cap — it was a convict for
life. As he reached the round top, a gust of wind blew off his
cap and revealed a head entirely white : it was not a young
man.

In fact, one of the convicts employed on board in some
prison task, had, at the first alarm, run to the officer of the
watch, and, amid the confusion and hesitation of the crew,
while | all the sailors trembled and shrank back, had asked
permission to save the topman's life at the risk of his own. A
sign of assent being given, with one blow of a hammer he broke
the chain riveted to the iron ring at his ankle, then took a rope
in his hand, and flung himself into the shrouds. Nobody, at
the moment, noticed with what ease the chain was broken. It
was only some time afterwards that anybody remembered it.

In a twinkling he was upon the yard. He paused a^ few
seconds, and seemed to measure it with his glance. . Those
seconds, during which the wind swayed the sailor to and fro at
the end of the rope, seemed ages to the lookers-on. At length,
the convict raised his eyes to heaven, and took a step forward.
The crowd drew a long' breath. He was seen to run along the
yard. On reaching its extreme tip, he fastened one end of the
rope he had with him, and let the other hang at full length.

358

Les Miserables

Thereupon, he began to let himself down by his hands along
this rope, and then there was an inexpressible sensation of
terror; instead of one man, two were seen dangling at that
giddy height.

You would have said it was a spider seizing a fly; only, in
this case, the spider was bringing life, and not death. Ten
thousand eyes were fixed upon the group. Not a cry; not a
word was uttered; the same emotion contracted every brow.
Every man held his breath, as if afraid to add the least whisper
to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men.

However, the convict had, at length, managed to make his
way down to the seaman. It was time ; one minute more, and
the man, exhausted and despairing, would have fallen into the
deep. The convict firmly secured him to the rope to which he
clung with one hand while he worked with the other. Finally,
he was seen reascending to the yard, and hauling the sailor after
him; he supported him there, for an instant, to let him recover
his strength, and then, lifting him in his arms, carried him, as
he walked along the yard, to the crosstrees, and from there
to the round-top, where he left him in the hands of his mess-
mates.

Then the tlirong applauded; old galley sergeants wept,
women hugged each other on the wharves, and, on all sides,
voices were heard exclaiming, with a sort of tenderly subdued
enthusiasm: — " This man must be pardoned! "

He, however, had made it a point of duty to descend again
immediately, and go back to his work. In order to arrive more
quickly, he slid down the rigging, and started to run along a
lower yard. All eyes were following him. There was a certain
moment when every one felt alarmed; whether it was that he
felt fatigued, or because his head swam, people thought they
saw him hesitate and stagger. Suddenly, the throng uttered a
thrilling outcry : the convict had fallen into the sea.

The fall was perilous. The frigate Algesiras was moored close
to the Orion, and the poor convict had plunged between the
two ships. It was feared that he would be drawn under one or
the other. Four men sprang, at once, into a boat. The people
cheered them on, and anxiety again took possession of all minds.
The man had not again risen to the surface. He had disap-
peared in the sea, without making even a ripple, as though he
had fallen into a cask of oil. They sounded and dragged the
place. It was in vain. The search was continued until night,
but not even the body was found.

Cosette 359

The next morning, the Toulon Journal published the following
lines: — " November 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict at work on
board of the Orion, on his return from rescuing a sailor, fell
into the sea, and was drowned. His body was not recovered.
It is presumed that it has been caught under the piles at the
pier-head of the arsenal. This man was registered by the
number 9430, and his name was Jean Valjean."

THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL

MONTFERMEIL is situated between Livry and Chelles, upon the
southern slope of the high plateau which separates the Ourcq
from the Marne. At present, it is a considerable town, adorned
all the year round with stuccoed villas, and, on Sundays, with
citizens in full blossom. In 1823, there were at Montfermeil
neither so many white houses nor so many comfortable citizens ;
it was nothing but a village in the woods. You would find,
indeed, here and there a few country seats of the last century,
recognisable by their grand appearance, their balconies of
twisted iron, and those long windows the little panes of which
show all sorts of different greens upon the white of the closed
shutters. But Montfermeil was none the less a village. Retired
dry-goods merchants and amateur villagers had not yet dis-
covered it. It was a peaceful and charming spot, and not upon
the road to any place; the inhabitants cheaply enjoyed that
rural life which is so luxuriant and so easy of enjoyment. But
water was scarce there on account of the height of the plateau.

They had to go a considerable distance for it. The end of
the village towards Gagny drew its water from the magnificent
ponds in the forest on that side ; the other end, which surrounds
the church and which is towards Chelles, found drinking-water
only at a little spring on the side of the hill, near the road to
Chelles, about fifteen minutes' walk from Montfermeil.

It was therefore a serious matter for each household to obtain
its supply of water. The great houses, the aristocracy, the
Thenardier tavern included, paid a penny a bucket-full to an
old man who made it his business, and whose income from the
Montfermeil water-works was about eight sous per day; but
this man worked only till seven o'clock in summer and five in
the winter, and when night had come on, and the first-floor

360

Cosette 361

shutters were closed, whoever had no drinking-water went after
it, or went without it.

This was the terror of the poor being whom the reader has
not perhaps forgotten — little Cosette. It will be remembered
that Cosette was useful to the Thenardiers in two ways, they
got pay from the mother and work from the child. Thus when
the mother ceased entirely to pay, we have seen why, in the
preceding chapters, the Thenardiers kept Cosette. She saved
them a servant. In that capacity she ran for water when it
was wanted. So the child, always horrified at the idea of going
to the spring at night, took good care that water should never
be wanting at the house.

Christmas in the year 1823 was particularly brilliant at Mont-
fermeil. The early part of the winter had been mild; so far
there had been neither frost nor snow. Some jugglers from
Paris had obtained permission from the mayor to set up their
stalls in the main street of the village, and a company of pedlars
had, under the same licence, put up their booths in the square
before the church and even in the lane du Boulanger, upon
which, as the reader perhaps remembers, the Thenardier chop-
house was situated. This filled up the taverns and pot-houses,
and 'gave to this little quiet place a noisy and joyous appearance.
We ought also to say, to be a faithful historian, that, among
the curiosities displayed in the square, there was a menagerie in
which frightful clowns, clad in rags and come nobody knows
whence, were exhibiting in 1823 to the peasants of Montfermeil
one of those horrid Brazilian vultures, a specimen of which our
Museum Royal did not obtain until 1845, and the eye of which
is a tri-coloured cockade. Naturalists call this bird, I believe,
Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicidae
and the family of the vultures. Some good old retired Bona-
partist soldiers in the village went to see the bird as a matter
of faith. The jugglers pronounced the tri-coloured cockade a
unique phenomenon, made expressly by God for their menagerie.

On that Christmas evening, several men, waggoners and
pedlars, were seated at table and drinking around four or five
candles in the low hall of the Thenardier tavern. This room
resembled all bar-rooms; tables, pewter-mugs, bottles, drinkers,
smokers; little light, and much noise. The date, 1823, was,
however, indicated by the two things then in vogue with the
middle classes, which were on the table, a kaleidoscope and a
fluted tin lamp. Thenardier, the wife, was looking to the
supper, which was cooking before a bright blazing fire; the

362

Les Mis£rables

husband, Thenardier, was drinking with his guests and talking
politics.

Aside from the political discussions, the principal subjects
of which were the Spanish war and the Due d'Angouleme,
local interludes were heard amid the hubbub, like these, for
instance : —

" Down around Nanterre and Suresnes wine is turning out
well. Where they expected ten casks they are getting twelve.
That is getting a good yield of juice out of the press." " But
the grapes can't be ripe ? " " Oh, in these parts there is no
need of harvesting ripe ; the wine is fat enough by spring." "It
is all light wine then ? " " There is a good deal lighter wines
than they make hereabouts. You have to harvest green."

Etc.

Or, indeed, a miller might be bawling: —

" Are we responsible for what there is in the bags ? We find
a heap of little seeds there, that we can't amuse ourselves by
picking out, and of course we have got to let 'em go through
the stones; there's darnel, there's fennel, there's cockles, there's
vetch, there's hemp, there's fox-tail, and a lot of other weeds,
not counting the stones that there is in some wheat, especially
Breton wheat. I don't like to grind Breton wheat, no more
than carpenters like to saw boards with nails in 'em. Just
think of the dirt that all that makes in the till. And then they
complain of the flour. It's their own fault. We ain't to blame
for the flour."

Between two windows, a mower seated at a table with a
farmer, who was making a bargain for a piece of work to be
done the next season, was saying : —

" There is no harm in the grass having the dew on. It cuts
better. The dew is a good thing. It is all the same, that are
grass o' yours is young, and pretty hard to cut. You see it is
so green; you see it bends under the scythe."

Etc.

Cosette was at her usual place, seated on the cross-piece of
the kitchen table, near the fireplace ; she was clad in rags ; her
bare feet were in wooden shoes, and by the light of the fire she
was knitting woollen stockings for the little Thenardiers. A
young kitten was playing under the chairs. In a neighbouring
room the fresh voices of two children were heard laughing and
prattling ; it was Eponine and Azelma.

In the chimney-corner, a cow-hide hung upon a nail.

At intervals, the cry of a very young child, which was some-

Cosette 363

where in the house, was heard above the noise of the bar-room.
This was a little boy which the woman had had some winters
before — " She didn't know why," she said: "it was the cold
weather," — and which was a little more than three years old.
The mother had nursed him, but did not love him. When the
hungry clamour of the brat became too much to bear: — " Your
boy is squalling," said Thenardier, " why don't you go and see
what he wants?" "Bah!" answered the mother; "I am
sick of him." And the poor little fellow continued to cry in
the darkness.

TWO PORTRAITS COMPLETED

THE Thenardiers have hitherto been seen in this book in profile
only; the time has come to turn this couple about and look at
them on all sides.

Thenardier has just passed his fiftieth year; Madame Thenar-
dier had reached her fortieth, which is the fiftieth for woman ;
so that there was an equilibrium of age between the husband
and wife.

The reader has perhaps, since her first appearance, preserved
some remembrance of this huge Thenardiess ; — for such we shall
call the female of this species, — large, blond, red, fat, brawny,
square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to
the race of those colossal wild women who posturise at fairs
with paving-stones hung in their hair. She did everything
about the house, the chamber-work, the washing, the cooking,
anything she pleased, and played the deuce generally. Cosette
was her only servant; a mouse in the service of an elephant.
Everything trembled at the sound of her voice; windows and
furniture as well as people. Her broad face, covered with
freckles, had the appearance of a skimmer. She had beard.
She was the ideal of a butcher's boy dressed in petticoats. She
swore splendidly; she prided herself on being able to crack a
nut with her fist. Apart from the novels she had read, which
at times gave you an odd glimpse of the affected lady under the
ogress, the idea of calling her a woman never would have
occurred to anybody. This Thenardiess seemed like a cross
between a wench and a fishwoman. If you heard her speak,
you would say it is a gendarme; if you saw her drink, you
would say it is a cartman; if you saw her handle Cosette, you

364

Les Miserables

would say it is the hangman. When at rest, a tooth protruded
from her mouth.

The other Thenardier was a little man, meagre, pale, angular,
bony, and lean, who appeared to be sick, and whose health was
excellent; here his knavery began. He smiled habitually as a
matter of business, and tried to be polite to everybody, even to
the beggar to whom he refused a penny. He had the look of a
weazel, and the mien of a man of letters. He had a strong
resemblance to the portraits of the Abb6 Delille. He affected
drinking with waggoners. Nobody ever saw him drunk. He
smoked a large pipe. He wore a blouse, and under it an old
black coat. He made pretensions to literature and materialism.
There were names which he often pronounced in support of
anything whatever that he might say. Voltaire, Raynal, Parny,
and, oddly enough, St. Augustine. He professed to have " a
system." For the rest, a great swindler. A fellowsopher.
There is such a variety. It will be remembered, that he pre-
tended to have been in the service; he related with some pomp
that at Waterloo, being sergeant in a Sixth or Ninth Light
something, he alone, against a squadron of Hussars of Death,
had covered with his body, and saved amid a shower of grape,
" a general dangerously wounded." Hence the flaming picture
on his sign, and the name of his inn, which was spoken of in
that region as the " tavern of the sergeant of Waterloo." He
was liberal, classical, and a Bonapartist. He had subscribed
for the Champ d'Asile. It was said in the village that he had
studied for the priesthood.

We believe that he had only studied in Holland to be an
innkeeper. This whelp of the composite order was, according
to all probability, some Fleming of Lille in Flanders, a French-
man in Paris, a Belgian in Brussels, conveniently on the fence
between the two frontiers. We understand his prowess at
Waterloo. As we have seen, he exaggerated it a little. Ebb
and flow, wandering, adventure, was his element; a violated
conscience is followed by a loose life ; and without doubt, at the
stormy epoch of the i8th of June, 1815, Th6nardier belonged to
that species of marauding sutlers of whom we have spoken,
scouring the country, robbing here and selling there, and travel-
ling in family style, man, woman, and children, in some rickety
carry-all, in the wake of marching troops, with the instinct to
attach himself always to the victorious army. This campaign
over, having, as he said, some " quibus," he had opened a
" chop-house " at Montfermeil.

Cosette 365

This " quibus," composed of purses and watches/ gold rings
and silver crosses, gathered at the harvest time in the furrows
sown with corpses, did not form a great total, and had not
lasted this sutler, now become a tavern-keeper, very long.

Thenardier had that indescribable stiffness of gesture which,
with an oath, reminds you of the barracks, and, with a sign
of the cross, of the seminary. He was a fine talker. He was
fond of being thought learned. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster
remarked that he made mistakes in pronunciation. He made
out travellers' bills in a superior style, but practised eyes some-
times found them faulty in orthography. Thenardier was sly,
greedy, lounging, and clever. He did not disdain servant girls,
consequently his wife had no more of them. This giantess was
jealous. It seemed to her that this little, lean, and yellow man
must be the object of universal desire.

Thenardier, above all a man of astuteness and poise, was a
rascal of the subdued order. This is the worst species; there
is hypocrisy in it.

Not that Thenardier was not on occasion capable of anger,
quite as much so as his wife; but that was very rare, and at
such times, as if he were at war with the whole human race, as
if he had in him a deep furnace of hatred, as if he were of those
who are perpetually avenging themselves, who accuse everybody
about them of the evils that befall them, and are always ready
to throw on the first comer, as legitimate grievance, the sum-
total of the deceptions, failures, and calamities of their life— as
all this leaven worked in him, and boiled up into his mouth and
eyes, he was frightful. Woe to him who came within reach of
his fury, then!

Besides all his other qualities, Thenardier was attentive
penetrating, silent or talkative as occasion required, and always
with great intelligence. He had somewhat the look of sailors
accustomed to squinting the eye in looking through spy-glasses.
Thenardier was a statesman.

Everv new-comer who entered the chop-house said, on seeing
the Thenardiess: There is the master of the house.
error. She was not even the mistress. The husband was both
master and mistress. She performed, he created. He directed
everything by a sort of invisible and continuous magnetic ad
A word sufficed, sometimes a sign: the mastodon obeyed.
Thenardier was to her, without her being really aware of it a
sort of being apart and sovereign. She had the virtues of her
order of creation; never would she have differed in any detail

366

Les Miserables

with " Monsieur Thenardier " — nor — impossible supposition —
would she have publicly quarrelled with her husband, on any
matter whatever. Never had she committed " before com-
pany " that fault of which women are so often guilty, and which
is called in parliamentary language: discovering t the crown.
Although their accord had no other result than evil, there was
food for contemplation in the submission of the The"nardiess to
her husband. This bustling mountain of flesh moved under
the little finger of this frail despot. It was, viewed from its
dwarfed and grotesque side, this great universal fact: the
homage of matter to spirit; for certain deformities have their
origin in the depths even of eternal beauty. There was some-
what of the unknown in Thenardier; hence the absolute empire
of this man over this woman. At times, she looked upon him
as upon a lighted candle; at others, she felt him like a claw.

This woman was a formidable creation, who loved nothing
but her children, and feared nothing but her husband. She
was a mother because she was a mammal. Her maternal feelings
stopped with her girls, and, as we shall see, did not extend to
boys. The man had but one thought — to get rich.

He did not succeed. His great talents had no adequate
opportunity. Thenardier at Montfermeil was ruining himself,
if ruin is possible at zero. In Switzerland, or in the Pyrenees,
this penniless rogue would have become a millionaire. But
where fate places the innkeeper he must browse.

It is understood that the word innkeeper is employed here in
a restricted sense, and does not extend to an entire class.

In this same year, 1823, Thenardier owed about fifteen
hundred francs, of pressing debts, which rendered him moody.

However obstinately unjust destiny was to him, Thenardier
was one of those men who best understood, to the greatest
depth and in the most modern style, that which is a virtue
among the barbarous, and a subject of merchandise among the
civilised — hospitality. He was, besides, an admirable poacher,
and was counted an excellent shot. He had a certain cool and
quiet laugh, which was particularly dangerous.

His theories of innkeeping sometimes sprang from him by
flashes. He had certain professional aphorisms which he incul-
cated in the mind of his wife. " The duty of the innkeeper,"
said he to her one day, emphatically, and in a low voice, " is
to sell to the first comer, food, rest, light, fire, dirty linen,
servants, fleas, and smiles; to stop travellers, empty small
purses, and honestly lighten large ones; to receive families who

Cosette 367

are travelling, with respect: scrape the man, pluck the woman,
and pick the child; to charge for the open window, the closed
window, the chimney corner, the sofa, the chair, the stool, the
bench, the feather bed, the mattress, and the straw bed; to
know how much the mirror is worn, and to tax that; and, by
the five hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for
everything, even to the flies that his dog eats ! "

This man and this woman were cunning and rage married —
a hideous and terrible pair.

While the husband calculated and schemed, the Thenardiess
thought not of absent creditors, took no care either for yesterday
or the morrow, and lived passionately in the present moment.

Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them,
undergoing their double pressure, like a creature who is at the
same time being bruised by a millstone, and lacerated with
pincers. The man and the woman had each a different way.
Cosette was beaten unmercifully; that came from the woman.
She went barefoot in winter; that came from the man.

Cosette ran up stairs and down stairs; washed, brushed,
scrubbed, swept, ran, tired herself, got out of breath, lifted
heavy things, and, puny as she was, did the rough work. No
pity ; a ferocious mistress, a malignant master. The Th6nardier
chop-house was like a snare, in which Cosette had been caught,
and was trembling. The ideal of oppression was realised by
this dismal servitude. It was something like a fly serving
spiders.

The poor child was passive and silent.

When they find themselves in such condition at the dawn of
existence, so young, so feeble, among men, what passes in these
souls fresh from God !

Ill

MEN MUST HAVE WINE AND HORSES WATER

FOUR new guests had just come in.

Cosette was musing sadly; for, though she was only eight
years old, she had already suffered so much that she mused
with the mournful air of an old woman.

She had a black eye from a blow of the Thenardiess's fist,
which made the Thenardiess say from time to time, " How
ugly she is with her patch on her eye."

Cosette was then thinking that it was evening, late in the

368 Les Miserables

evening, that the bowls and pitchers in the rooms of the travellers
who had arrived must be filled immediately, and that there
was no more water in the cistern.

One thing comforted her a little; they did not drink much
water in the Thenardier tavern. There were plenty of people
there who were thirsty; but it was that kind of thirst which
reaches rather towards the jug than the pitcher. Had anybody
asked for a glass of water among these glasses of wine, he would
have seemed a savage to all those men. However, there was
an instant when the child trembled; the Thenardiess raised the
cover of a kettle which was boiling on the range, then took a
glass and hastily approached the cistern. She turned the
faucet; the child had raised her head and followed all her move-
ments. A thin stream of water ran from the faucet, and filled
the glass half full.

" Here," said she, " there is no more water! " Then she was
silent for a moment. The child held her breath.

"Pshaw!" continued the Thenardiess, examining the half-
filled glass, " there is enough of it, such as it is."

Cosette resumed her work, but for more than a quarter of an
hour she felt her heart leaping into her throat like a great ball.

She counted the minutes as they thus rolled away, and
eagerly wished it were morning.

From time to time, one of the drinkers would look out into
the street and exclaim: — " It is as black as an oven! " or, " It
would take a cat to go along the street without a lantern to-
night!" And Cosette shuddered.

All at once, one of the pedlars who lodged in the tavern came
in, and said in a harsh voice:

" You have not watered my horse."

" Yes, we have, sure," said the Thenardiess.

" I tell you no, ma'am," replied the pedlar.

Cosette came out from under the table.

"Oh, yes, monsieur!" said she, "the horse did drink; he
drank in the bucket, the bucket full, and 'twas me that carried
it to him, and I talked to him."

This was not true. Cosette lied.

" Here is a girl as big as my fist, who can tell a lie as big as
a house," exclaimed the pedlar. " I tell you that he has not
had any water, little wench! He has a way of blowing when
he has not had any water, that I know well enough."

Cosette persisted, and added in a voice stifled with anguish,
and which could hardly be heard:

Cosette 369

" But he did drink a good deal."

" Come," continued the pedlar, in a passion, " that is enough ;
give my horse some water, and say no more about it."

Cosette went back under the table.

" Well, of course that is right," said the The'nardiess; " if
the beast has not had any water, she must have some."

Then looking about her:

" Well, what has become of that girl? "

She stooped down and discovered Cosette crouched at the
other end of the table, almost under the feet of the drinkers.

" Ara't you coming ? " cried the Thenardiess.

Cosette came out of the kind of hole where she had hidden.
The Thenardiess continued:

"Mademoiselle Dog-without-a-name, go and carry some
drink to this horse."

" But, ma'am," said Cosette feebly, " there is no water."

The Thenardiess threw the street door wide open.

" Well, go after some ! "

Cosette hung her head, and went for an empty bucket that
was by the chimney corner.

The bucket was larger than she, and the child could have
sat down in it comfortably.

The Thenardiess went back to her range, and tasted what
was in the kettle with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while.

" There is some at the spring. She is the worst girl that ever
was. I think 'twould have been better if I'd left out the
onions."

Then she fumbled in a drawer where there were some pennies,
pepper, and garlic.

" Here, Mamselle Toad," added she, " get a big loaf at the
baker's, as you come back. Here is fifteen sous."

Cosette had a little pocket in the side of her apron ; she took
the piece without saying a word, and put it in that pocket.

Then she remained motionless, bucket in hand, the open door
before her. She seemed to be waiting for somebody to come
to her aid.

" Get along ! " cried the Thenardiess.

Cosette went out. The door closed.

370 Les Miserables

A DOLL ENTERS UPON THE SCENE

THE row of booths extended along the street from the church,
the reader will remember, as far as the Thenardier tavern.
These booths, on account of the approaching passage of the
citizens on their way to the midnight mass, were all illuminated
with candles, burning in paper lanterns, which, as the school--
master of Montfermeil, who was at that moment seated at one
of Thenardier's tables, said, produced a magical effect. In
retaliation, not a star was to be seen in the sky.

The last of these stalls, set up exactly opposite Thenardier's
door, was a toy-shop, all glittering with trinkets, glass beads,
and things magnificent in tin. In the first rank, and in front,
the merchant had placed, upon a bed of white napkins, a great
doll nearly two feet high dressed in a robe of pink-crape with
golden wheat-ears on its head, and which had real hair and
enamel eyes. The whole day, this marvel had been displayed
to the bewilderment of the passers under ten years of age, but
there had not been found in Montfermeil a mother rich enough,
or prodigal enough to give it to her child. Eponine and Azelma
had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself,
furtively, it is true, had dared to look at it.

At the moment when Cosette went out, bucket in hand, all
gloomy and overwhelmed as she was, she could not help raising
her eyes towards this wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she
called it. The poor child stopped petrified. She had not seen
this doll so near before.

This whole booth seemed a palace to her; this doll was not a
doll, it was a vision. It was joy, splendour, riches, happiness,
and it appeared in a sort of chimerical radiance to this unfor-
tunate little being, buried so deeply in a cold and dismal misery.
Cosette was measuring with the sad and simple sagacity of
childhood the abyss which separated her from that doll. She
was saying to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a
princess, to have a " thing " like that. She gazed upon this
beautiful pink dress, this beautiful smooth hair, and she was
thinking, " How happy must be that doll ! " Her eye could
not turn away from this fantastic booth. The longer she looked,
the more she was dazzled. She thought she saw paradise.
There were other dolls behind the large one that appeared to

Cosette 371

her to be fairies and genii. The merchant walking to and fro
in the back part of his stall, suggested the Eternal Father.

In this adoration, she forgot everything, even the errand on
which she had been sent. Suddenly, the harsh voice of the
Thenardiess called her back to the reality : " How, jade, haven't
you gone yet? Hold on; I am coming for you! I'd like to
know what she's doing there ? Little monster, be off ! "

The Thenardiess had glanced into the street, and perceived
Cosette in ecstasy.

Cosette fled with her bucket, running as fast as she could.

THE LITTLE GIRL ALL ALONE

As the Thenardier tavern was in that part of the village which
is near the church, Cosette had to go to the spring in the woods
towards Chelles to draw water.

She looked no more at the displays in the booths, so long as
she was in the lane Boulanger; and in the vicinity of the church,
the illuminated stalls lighted the way, but soon the last gleam
from the last stall disappeared. The poor child found herself
in darkness. She became buried in it. Only, as she became
the prey of a certain sensation, she shook the handle of the
bucket as much as she could on her way. That made a noise,
which kept her company.

The further she went, the thicker became the darkness.
There was no longer anybody in the street. However, she met
a woman who turned around on seeing her pass, and remained
motionless, muttering between her teeth; " Where in the world
can that child be going? Is it a phantom child? " Then the
woman recognised Cosette. " Oh," said she, " it is the lark ! "

Cosette thus passed through the labyrinth of crooked and
deserted streets, which terminates the village of Montfermeil
towards Chelles. As long as she had houses, or even walls, on
the sides of the road, she went on boldly enough. From time
to time, she saw the light of a candle through the cracks of a
shutter; it was light and life to her; there were people there;
that kept up her courage. However, as she advanced, her
speed slackened as if mechanically. When she had passed the
corner of the last house, Cosette stopped. To go beyond the
last booth had been difficult; to go further than the last house
became impossible. She put the bucket on the ground, buried

372 Les Miserables

her hands in her hair, and began to scratch her head slowly, a
motion peculiar to terrified and hesitating children. It was
Montfermeil no longer, it was the open country; dark and
deserted space was before her. She looked with despair into
this darkness where nobody was, where there were beasts, where
there were perhaps ghosts. She looked intensely, and she
heard the animals walking in the grass, and she distinctly saw
the ghosts moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket
again; fear gave her boldness: " Pshaw," said she, " I will tell
her there isn't any more water ! " And she resolutely went
back into Montfermeil.

She had scarcely gone a hundred steps when she stopped
again, and began to scratch her head. Now, it was the Thenar-
diess that appeared to her; the hideous Thenardiess, with her
hyena mouth, and wrath flashing from her eyes. The child
cast a pitiful glance before her and behind her. What could
she do? What would become of her? Where should she go?
Before her, the spectre of the Thenardiess; behind her, all the
phantoms of night and of the forest. It was at the Thenardiess
that she recoiled. She took the road to the spring again, and
began to run. She ran out of the village; she ran into the
woods, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. She did not stop
running until out of breath, and even then she staggered on.
She went right on, desperate.

Even while running, she wanted to cry.

The nocturnal tremulousness of the forest wrapped her about
completely.

She thought no more ; she saw nothing more. The immensity
of night confronted this little creature. On one side, the
infinite shadow; on the other, an atom.

It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the
woods to the spring. Cosette knew the road, from travelling it
several times a day. Strange thing, she did not lose her way.
A remnant of instinct guided her blindly. But she neither
turned her eyes to the right nor to the left, for fear of seeing
things in the trees and in the bushes. Thus she arrived at
the spring.

It was a small natural basin, made by the water in the loamy
soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss, and with that
long figured grass called Henry Fourth's collars, and paved with
a few large stones. A brook escaped from it with a gentle,
tranquil murmur.

Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but

Cosette 373

she was accustomed to come to this fountain. She felt with
her left hand in the darkness for a young oak which bent over
the spring and usually served her as a support, found a branch,
swung herself from it, bent down and plunged the bucket in
the water. She was for a moment so excited that her strength
was tripled. When she was thus bent over, she did not notice
that the pocket of her apron emptied itself into the spring. The
fifteen-sous piece fell into the water. Cosette neither saw it
nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket almost full and set
it on the grass.

This done, she perceived that her strength was exhausted.

She was anxious to start at once; but the effort of filling the

' bucket had been so great that it was impossible for her to take

a step. She was compelled to sit down. She fell upon the

grass and remained in a crouching posture.

She closed her eyes, then she opened them, without knowing
why, without the power of doing otherwise. At her side, the
water shaken in the bucket made circles that resembled serpents
of white fire.

Above her head, the sky was covered with vast black clouds
which were like sheets of smoke. The tragic mask of night
seemed to bend vaguely over this child.

Jupiter was setting in the depths of the horizon.

The child looked with a startled eye upon that great star
which she did not know and which made her afraid. The
planet, in fact, was at that moment very near the horizon and
was crossing a dense bed of mist which gave it a horrid redness.
The mist, gloomily empurpled, magnified the star. One would
have called it a luminous wound.

A cold wind blew from the plain. The woods were dark,
without any rustling of leaves, without any of those vague and
fresh coruscations of summer. Great branches drew themselves
up fearfully. Mean and shapeless bushes whistled in the glades.
The tall grass wriggled under the north wind like eels. The
brambles twisted about like long arms seeking to seize their
prey in their claws. Some dry weeds, driven by the wind,
passed rapidly by, and appeared to flee with dismay before
something that was following. The prospect was dismal.

Darkness makes the brain giddy. Man needs light. Who-
ever plunges into the opposite of day feels his heart chilled.
When the eye sees blackness, the mind sees trouble. In an
eclipse, in night, in the sooty darkness, there is anxiety even
to the strongest. Nobody walks alone at night in the forest

374 Les Miserables

without trembling. Darkness and trees, two formidable depths
— a reality of chimeras appears in the indistinct distance. The
Inconceivable outlines itself a few steps from you with a spectral
clearness. You see floating in space or in your brain something
strangely vague and unseizable as the dreams of sleeping flowers.
There are fierce phantoms in the horizon. You breathe in the
odours of the great black void. You are afraid, and are tempted
to look behind you. The hollowness of night, the haggardness
of all things, the silent profiles that fade away as you advance,
the obscure dishevelments, angry clumps, livid pools, the
gloomy reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of
silence, the possible unknown beings, the swaying of mysterious
branches, the frightful twistings of the trees, long spires of
shivering grass — against all this you have no defence. There
is no bravery which does not shudder and feel the nearness of
anguish. You feel something hideous, as if the soul were amal-
gamating with the shadow. This penetration of the darkness
is inexpressibly dismal for a child.

Forests are apocalypses; and the beating of the wings of a
little soul makes an agonising sound under their monstrous
vault.

Without being conscious of what she was experiencing,
Cosette felt that she was seized by this black enormity of nature.
It was not merely terror that held her, but something more
terrible even than terror. She shuddered. Words fail to
express the peculiar strangeness of that shudder which chilled
her through and through. Her eye had become wild. She
felt that perhaps she would be compelled to return there at the
same hour the next night.

Then, by a sort of instinct, to get out of this singular state,
which she did not understand, but which terrified her, she began
to count aloud one, two, three, four, up to ten, and when she
had finished, she began again. This restored her to a real per-
ception of things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in
drawing the water, felt cold. She arose. Her fear had returned,
a natural and insurmountable fear. She had only one thought,
to fly; to fly with all her might, across woods, across fields, to
houses, to windows, to lighted candles. Her eyes fell upon the
bucket that was before her. Such was the dread with which
the Thenardiess inspired her, that she did not dare to go without
the bucket of water. She grasped the handle with both hands.
She could hardly lift the bucket.

She went a dozen steps in this manner, but the bucket was

Cosette 375

full, it was heavy, she was compelled to rest it on the ground.
She breathed an instant, then grasped the handle again, and
walked on, this time a little longer. But she had to stop again.
After resting a few seconds, she started on. She walked bending
forward, her head down, like an old woman: the weight of the
bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron handle
was numbing and freezing her little wet hands; from time to
time she had to stop, and every time she stopped, the cold
water that splashed from the bucket fell upon her naked knees.
This took place in the depth of a wood, at night, in the winter,
far from all human sight; it was a child of eight years; there
was none but God at that moment who saw this sad thing.

And undoubtedly her mother, alas !

For there are tilings which open the eyes of the dead in their
grave.

She breathed with a kind of mournful rattle; sobs choked
her, but she did not dare to weep, so fearful was she of the
Thenardiess, even at a distance. She always imagined that
the Thenardiess was near.

However she could not make much headway in this manner,
and was getting along very slowly. She tried hard to shorten
her resting spells, and to walk as far as possible between them.
She remembered with anguish that it would take her more than
an hour to return to Montfermeil thus, and that the Thenardiess
would beat her. This anguish added to her dismay at being
alone in the woods at night. She was worn out with fatigue,
and was not yet out of the forest. Arriving near an old chest
nut tree which she knew, she made a last halt, longer than the
others, to get well rested ; then she gathered all her strength,
took up the bucket again, and began to walk on courageously.
Meanwhile the poor little despairing thing could not help
crying: "Oh! my God! my God!"

At that moment she felt all at once that the weight of the
bucket was gone. A hand, which seemed enormous to her, had
just caught the handle, and was carrying it easily, she raised
her head. A large dark form, straight and erect, was walking
beside her in the gloom. It was a man who had come up
behind her, and whom she had not heard. This man, without
saving a word, had grasped the handle of the bucket she was
carrying.

There are instincts for all the crises ot Me.
The child was not afraid.

376 Les Miserables

WHICH PERHAPS PROVES THE INTELLIGENCE OF
BOULATRUELLE

IN the afternoon of that same Christmas-day, 1823,' a man
walked a long time in the most deserted portion of the Boulevard
de 1'Hopital at Paris. This man had the appearance of some
one who was looking for lodgings, and seemed to stop by pre-
ference before the most modest houses of this dilapidated part
of the Faubourg Saint Marceau.

We shall see further on that this man did in fact hire a room
in this isolated quarter.

This man., in his dress as in his whole person, realised the type
of what might be called the mendicant of good society — extreme
misery being combined with extreme neatness. It is a rare
coincidence which inspires intelligent hearts with this double
respect that we feel for him who is very poor and for him who
is very worthy. He wore a round hat, very old and carefully
brushed, a long coat, completely threadbare, of coarse yellow
cloth, a colour which was in nowise extraordinary at that epoch,
a large waistcoat with pockets of antique style, black trousers
worn grey at the knees, black woollen stockings, and thick shoes
with copper buckles. One would have called him an old pre-
ceptor of a good family, returned from the emigration. From
his hair, which was entirely white, from his wrinkled brow,
from his livid lips, from his face in which everything breathed
exhaustion and weariness of life, one would have supposed him
considerably over sixty. From his firm though slow step, and
the singular vigour impressed upon all his motions, one would
hardly have thought him fifty. The wrinkles on his forehead
were well disposed, and would have prepossessed in his favour
any one who observed him with attention. His lip contracted
with a strange expression, which seemed severe and yet which
was humble. There was in the depths of his eye an inde-
scribably mournful serenity. He carried in his left hand a
small package tied in a handkerchief, with his right he leaned
upon a sort of staff cut from a hedge. This staff had been
finished with some care, and did not look very badly; the knots
were smoothed down, and a coral head had been formed with
red wax; it was a cudgel, and it seemed a cane.

There are few people on that boulevard, especially in winter.

Cosette 377

This man appeared to avoid them rather than seek them, but
without affectation.

At that epoch the king, Louis XVIII., went almost every day
to Choisy Le Roy. It was one of his favourite rides. About
two o'clock, almost invariably, the carriage and the royal
cavalcade were seen to pass at full speed through the Boulevard
de I'Hopital.

This supplied the place of watch and clock to the poor women
of the quarter, who would say: " It is two o'clock, there he is
going back to the Tuileries."

And some ran, and others fell into line; for when a king
passes by, there is always a tumult. Moreover, the appearance
and disappearance of Louis XVIII. produced a certain sensa-
tion [in the streets of Paris. It was rapid, but majestic. This
impotent king had a taste for fast driving; not being able to
walk, he wished to run; this cripple would have gladly been
drawn by the lightning. He passed by, peaceful and severe, in
the midst of naked sabres. His massive coach, all gilded, with
great lily branches painted on the panels, rolled noisily along.
One hardly had time to catch a glance of it. In the back
corner on the right could be seen, upon cushions covered with
white satin, a broad face, firm and red, a forehead freshly
powdered a la bird of paradise, a proud eye, stern and keen, a
well-read smile, two large epaulets of bullion waving over a
citizen's dress, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the-
cross of the Legion of Honour, the silver badge of the Holy
Spirit, a big belly, and a large blue ribbon ; that was the king..
Outside of Paris, he held his hat with white feathers upon his
knees, which were inclosed in high English gaiters; when he
re-entered the city, he placed his hat upon his head, bowing but.
little. He looked coldly upon the people, who returned his-
look. When he appeared for the first time in the Quartier
Saint Marceau, all he succeeded in eliciting was this saying
of a resident to his comrade: " It's that big fellow who is the-
government."

This unfailing passage of the king at the same hour was then >
the daily event of the Boulevard de I'Hopital.

The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong
to the quarter, and probably not to Paris, for he was ignorant
of this circumstance. When at two o'clock the royal carriage,
surrounded by a squadron of silver-laced body-guard, turned
into the boulevard, after passing La Salpetriere, he appeared
surprised, and almost frightened. There was no one else in the -.

378 Les Miserables

cross alley, and he retired hastily behind a corner of the side
wall, but this did not prevent the Duke d'Havre seeing him.
The Duke d'Havre, as captain of the guards in waiting that day,
was seated in the carriage opposite the king. He said to his
majesty: " There is a man who has a bad look." Some police-
men, who were clearing the passage for the king, also noticed
him; one of them was ordered to follow him. But the man
plunged into the little solitary streets of the Faubourg, and as
night was coming on the officer lost his track, as is established
by a report addressed on the same evening to the Comte Angles,
Minister of State, Prefect of Police.

When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the officer off
his track, he turned about, not without looking back many
times to make sure that he was not followed. At a quarter past
four, that is to say, after dark, he passed in front of the theatre
of the Porte Saint Martin where the play that day was The Two
Convicts. The poster, lit up by the reflection from the theatre,
seemed to strike him, for, although he was walking rapidly, he
stopped to read it. A moment after, he was in the cul-de-sac
de la Planchette, and entered the Pewter platter, which was then
the office of the Lagny stage. This stage started at half past
four. The horses were harnessed, and the travellers, who had
been called by the driver hastily, were climbing the high iron
steps of the vehicle.

The man asked:

' Have you a seat? "

' Only one, beside me, on the box," said the driver.

' I will take it."

' Get up then."

Before starting, however, the driver cast a glance at the poor
apparel of the traveller, and at the smallness of his bundle, and
took his pay.

" Are you going through to Lagny? " asked the driver.

" Yes," said the man.

The traveller paid through to Lagny.

They started off. When they had passed the barriere, the
driver tried to start a conversation, but the traveller answered
only in monosyllables. The driver concluded to whistle, and
swear at his horses.

The driver wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold.
The man did not appear to notice it. In this way they passed
through Gournay and Neuilly sur Marne. About six o'clock in
the evening they were at Chelles. The driver stopped to let

Cosette 370

his horses breathe, in front of the waggoners' tavern established
in the old buildings of the royal abbey.

" I will get down here," said the man.

He took his bundle and stick, and jumped down from the
stage.

A moment aftenvards he had disappeared.

He did not go into the tavern.

When, a few minutes afterwards, the stage started off for
Lagny, it did not overtake him in the main street of Chelles.

The driver turned to the inside passengers :

" There," said he, " is a man who does not belong here, for I
don't know him. He has an appearance of not having a sou;
however, he don't stick about money; he pays to Lagny, and
he only goes to Chelles. It is night, all the houses are shut, he
don't go to the tavern, and we don't overtake him. He must,
then, have sunk into the ground."

The man had not sunk into the ground, but he had hurried
rapidly in the darkness along the main street of Chelles ; then
he had turned to the left, before reaching the church, into the
cross road leading to Montfermeil, like one who knew the
country and had been that way before.

He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it intersects
the old road bordered with trees that goes from Gagny to Lagny,
he heard footsteps approaching. He concealed himself hastily
in a ditch, and waited there till the people who were passing
were a good distance off. The precaution was indeed almost
superfluous, for, as we have already said, it was a very dark
December night. There were scarcely two or three stars to be
seen in the sky.

It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The
man did not return to the Montfermeil road; he turned to the
right, across the fields, and gained the woods with rapid strides.

When he reached the wood, he slackened his pace, and began
to look carefully at all the trees, pausing at every step, as if he
were seeking and following a mysterious route known only to
himself. There was a moment when he appeared to lose him-
self, and when he stopped, undecided. Finally he arrived, by
continual groping, at a glade where there was a heap of large
whitish stones. He made his way quickly towards these stones,
and examined them with attention in the dusk of the night, as
if he were passing them in review. A large tree, covered with
these excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, was a few
steps from the heap of stones. He went to this tree, and passed

38o

Les Miserablcs

his hand over the bark of the trunk, as if he were seeking to
recognise and to count all the warts.

Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut
tree wounded in the bark, which had been staunched with a
bandage of zinc nailed on. He rose on tip-toe and touched
that band of zinc.

Then he stamped for some time upon the ground in the space
between the tree and the stones, like one who would be sure
that the earth had not been freshly stirred.

This done, he took his course and resumed his walk through
the woods.

This was the man who had fallen in with Cosette.

As he made his way through the copse in the direction of
Montfermeil, he had perceived that little shadow, struggling
along with a groan, setting her burden on the ground, then taking
it up and going on again. He had approached her and seen
that it was a very young child carrying an enormous bucket of
water. Then he had gone to the child, and silently taken hold
of the handle of the bucket.

VII

COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE UNKNOWN, IN THE
DARKNESS

COSETTE, we have said, was not afraid.

The man spoke to her. His voice was serious, and was
almost a whisper.

" My child, that is very heavy for you which you are carrying
there."

Cosette raised her head and answered :

" Yes, monsieur."

" Give it to me," the man continued, " I will carry it for you."

Cosette let go of the bucket. The man walked along with
her.

"It is very heavy, indeed," said he to himself. Then he
added :

" Little girl, how old are you ? "

" Eight years, monsieur."

" And have you come far in this way ? "

" From the spring in the woods."

" And are you going far ? "

Cosette -gj

' A good quarter of an hour from here "

abr^tly : n ^^ * ^^ with°Ut ****** ^n he said
" You have no mother then ? "
" I don't know," answered the child
Before the man had had time to say a word, she added-

Ven^'1^ A« the -st have one. Por my
And after a silence, she added :
" I believe I never had any."
The man stopped, put the bucket on the ground stoooed

Sol? t P ^ ,hK ^^ Up°n the Child's shoulders,
effort to look at her and see her face in the darkness

" What is your name? " said the man

" Cosette."

It seemed as if the man had an electric shock. He looked at

A moment after, he asked:
" Little girl, where do you live? "
' At Montfermeil, if you know it."
" Is it there that we are going? "
" Yes, monsieur."
He made another pause, then he began-

at a

" Madame Thenardier.
The man resumed with a tone of voice which he tried to

nevertheless ^

" What does she do, your Madame Thenardier? "
tavern " * my mistreSS/> said the chijd- " s'he keeps the

" The tavern," said the man. « Well, I am going there to
lodge to-night. Show me the way."

" We are going there," said the child.

The man walked very fast. Cosette followed him without
difficulty She felt fatigue no more. From time to time she
raised her eyes towards this man with a sort of tranquillity and
inexpressible confidence. She had never been taught to turn
towards Providence and to pray. However, she felt in her

382 Les Miserables

bosom something that resembled hope and joy, and which
rose towards heaven.

A few minutes passed. The man spoke :

" Is there no servant at Madame Thenardier's ? "

" No, monsieur."

" Are you alone? "

" Yes, monsieur."

There was another interval of silence. Cosette raised her
voice :

" That is, there are two little girls."

"What little girls?"

" Ponine and Zelma."

The child simplified in this way the romantic names dear to
the mother.

" What are Ponine and Zelma? "

" They are Madame Thenardier's young ladies, you might
say her daughters."

" And what do they do? "

" Oh ! " said the child, " they have beautiful dolls, things
which there's gold in; they are full of business. They play,
they amuse themselves."

"All day long?"

" Yes, monsieur."

" And you?"

"Me! I work."

"All day long?"

The child raised her large eyes in which there was a tear,
which could not be seen in the darkness, and answered softly :

" Yes, monsieur."

She continued after an interval of silence :

" Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they are
willing, I amuse myself also."

" How do you amuse yourself? "

" The best I can. They let me alone. But I have not many
playthings. Ponine and Zelma are not willing for me to play
with their dolls. I have only a little lead sword, not longer
than that."

The child showed her little finger.

" And which does not cut? "

" Yes, monsieur," said the child, " it cuts lettuce and flies'
heads."

They reached the village; Cosette guided the stranger
through the streets. They passed by the bakery, but Cosette

Cosette 383

did not think of the bread she was to have brought back. The
man questioned her no more, and now maintained a mournful
silence. When they had passed the church, the man, seeing all
these booths in the street, asked Cosette:

" Is it fair-time here ! "

" No, monsieur, it is Christmas."

As they drew near the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his
arm:

"Monsieur?"

"What, my child?"

' Here we are close by the house."

'Well?"

' Will you let me take the bucket now? "

'What for?"

' Because, if madame sees that anybody brought it for me,
she will beat me."

The man gave her the bucket. A moment after they were
at the door of the chop-house.

VIII

INCONVENIENCE OF ENTERTAINING A POOR MAN WHO
IS PERHAPS RICH

COSETTE could not help casting one look towards the grand doll
still displayed in the toy-shop, then she rapped. The door
•opened. The Thenardiess appeared with a candle in her hand.

" Oh! it is you, you little beggar! Lud-a-massy ! you have
•taken your time ! she has been playing, the wench ! "

" Madame," said Cosette, trembling, " there is a gentleman
•who is coming to lodge."

The The"nardiess very quickly replaced her fierce air by her
: amiable .grimace, a change at sight peculiar to innkeepers, and
, looked for the new-comer with eager eyes.

" Is it monsieur? " said she.

" Yes, madame," answered the man, touching his hat.

Rich travellers are not so polite. This gesture and the sight
<of the stranger's costume and baggage which the Th6nardiess
passed in review at a glance made the amiable grimace disappear
and the fierce. air reappear. She added drily:

" Enter, goodman."

The " goodman " entered. The Thdnardiess cast a second
;glance at him, examined particularly his long coat which was

3*4

Les Miserables

absolutely threadbare, and his hat which was somewhat broken,
and with a nod, a wink, and a turn of her nose, consulted her
husband, who was still drinking with the waggoners. The
husband answered by that imperceptible shake of the forefinger
which, supported by a protrusion of the lips, signifies in such a
case: "complete destitution." Upon this the Thenardiess
exclaimed :

" Ah! my brave man, I am very sorry, but I have no room."

" Put me where you will," said the man, " in the garret, in
the stable. I will pay as if I had a room."

" Forty sous."

" Forty sous. Well."

" In advance."

" Forty sous," whispered a waggoner to the Thenardiess, " but
it is only twenty sous."

" It is forty sous for him/' replied the Thenardiess in the
same tone. " I don't lodge poor people for less."

" That is true," added her husband softly, " it ruins a house
to have this sort of people."

Meanwhile the man, after leaving his stick and bundle on a
bench, had seated himself at a table on which Cosette had been
quick to place a bottle of wine and a glass. The pedlar, who
had asked for the bucket of water, had gone himself to carry it
to his horse. Cosette had resumed her place under the kitchen
table and her knitting.

The man, who hardly touched his lips to the wine he had
turned out, was contemplating the child with a strange attention.

Cosette was ugly. Happy, she might, perhaps, have been
pretty. We have already sketched this little pitiful face.
Cosette was thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but
one would hardly have thought her six. Her large eyes, sunk
in a sort of shadow, were almost put out by continual weeping.
The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual anguish,
which is seen in the condemned and in the hopelessly sick.
Her hands were, as her mother had guessed, " covered with
chilblains." The light of the fire which was shining upon her,
made her bones stand out and rendered her thinness fearfully
visible. As she was always shivering, she had acquired the
habit of drawing her knees together. Her whole dress was
nothing but a rag, which would have excited pity in the summer,
and which excited horror in the winter. She had on nothing
but cotton, and that full of holes; not a rag of woollen. Her
skin showed here and there, and black and blue spots could be

Cosette 385

distinguished, which indicated the places where the Thenardiess
had touched her. Her naked legs were red and rough. The
hollows under her collar bones would make one weep. The
whole person of this child, her gait, her attitude, the sound of
her voice, the intervals between one word and another, her
looks, her silence, her least motion, expressed and uttered a
single idea: fear.

Fear was spread all over her; she was, so to say, covered
with it; fear drew back her elbows against her sides, drew her
heels under her skirt, made her take the least possible room,
prevented her from breathing more than was absolutely neces-
sary, and had become what might be called her bodily habit,
without possible variation, except of increase. There was in
the depth of her eye an expression of astonishment mingled
with terror.

This fear was such that on coming in, all wet as she was,
Cosette had not dared go and dry herself by the fire, but had
gone silently to her work.

The expression of the countenance of this child of eight years
was habitually so sad and sometimes so tragical that it seemed,
at certain moments, as if she were in the way of becoming an
idiot or a demon.

Never, as we have said, had she known what it is to pray,
never had she set foot within a church. " How can I spare the
time? " said the Thenardiess.

The man in the yellow coat did not take his eyes from Cosette.

Suddenly, the Thenardiess exclaimed out:

"Oh! I forgot! that bread!"

Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thenardiess
raised her voice, sprang out quickly from under the table.

She had entirely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to
the expedient of children who are always terrified. She lied.

"^fadame, the baker was shut."

" You ought to have knocked."

" I did knock, madame."

"Well?"

" He didn't open."

" I'll find out to-morrow if that is true," said the Thenardiess,
" and if you are lying you will lead a pretty dance. Meantime,
give me back the fifteen-sous piece.'

Cosette plunged her hand into her apron pocket, and turned
white. The fifteen-sous piece was not there.

" Come," said the Thenardiess, " didn't you hear me? "

I N

386

Les Miserables

Cosette turned her pocket inside out; there was nothing
there. What could have become of that money? The little
unfortunate could not utter a word. She was petrified.

" Have you lost it, the fifteen-sous piece? " screamed the
Thenardiess, " or do you want to steal it from me ? "

At the same time she reached her arm towards the cowhide
hanging in the chimney corner.

This menacing movement gave Cosette the strength to cry
out:

" Forgive me ! Madame ! Madame ! I won't do so any
more ! "

The Thenardiess took down the whip.

Meanwhile the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling
in his waistcoat pocket, without being noticed. The other
travellers were drinking or playing cards, and paid no attention
to anything.

Cosette was writhing with anguish in the chimney-corner,
trying to gather up and hide her poor half-naked limbs. The
Th6nardiess raised her arm.

" I beg your pardon, madame," said the man, " but I just
now saw something fall out of the pocket of that little girl's
apron and roll away. That may be it."

At the same time he stooped down and appeared to search
on the floor for an instant.

" Just so, here it is," said he, rising.

And he handed a silver piece to the Thenardiess.

" Yes, that is it," said she.

That was not it, for it was a twenty-sous piece, but the
Thdnardiess found her profit in it. She put the piece in her
pocket, and contented herself with casting a ferocious look at
the child and saying:

" Don't let that happen again, ever."

Cosette went back to what the Thenardiess called " her hole,"
and her large eye, fixed upon the unknown traveller, began to
assume an expression that it had never known before. It was
still only an artless astonishment, but a sort of blind confidence
was associated with it.

" Oh ! you want supper ? " asked the Thenardiess of the
traveller.

He did not answer. He seemed to be thinking deeply.

" What is that man ? " said she between her teeth. " It is
some frightful pauper. He hasn't a penny for his supper. Is
he going to pay me for his lodging only? It is very lucky }

Cosettc 387

anyway, that he didn't think to steal the money that was on
the floor."

A door now opened, and Eponine and Azelma came in.

They were really two pretty little girls, rather city girls than
peasants, very charming, one with her well-polished auburn
tresses, the other with her long black braids falling down her
back, and both so lively, neat, plump, fresh, and healthy, that
it^was a pleasure to see them. They were warmly clad, but
with such maternal art, that the thickness of the stuff detracted
nothing from the coquetry of the fit. Winter was provided
against without effacing spring. These two little girls shed
light around^ them. Moreover, they were regnant. In their
toilet, in their gaiety, in the noise they made, there was sove-
reignty. When they entered, the Thenardiess said to them in
a scolding tone, which was full of adoration: "Ah! you are
here then, you children ! "

Then, taking them upon her knees one after the other,
smoothing their hair, tying over their ribbons, and finally
letting them go with that gentle sort of shake which is peculiar
to mothers, she exclaimed:

" Are they dowdies ! "

They went and sat down by the fire. They had a doll which
they turned backwards and forwards upon their knees with
many pretty prattlings. From time to time, Cosette raised her
eyes from her knitting, and looked sadly at them as they were
playing.

Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. To them she
was like the dog. These three little girls could not count
twenty-four years among them all, and they already repre-
sented all human society ; on one side envy, on the other
disdain.

The doll of the Thenardier sisters was very much faded, and
very old and broken; and it appeared none the less wonderful
to Cosette, who had never in her life had a doll, a real doll, to
use an expression that all children will understand.

All at once, the Thenardiess who was continually going and
coming about the room, noticed that Cosette's attention was
distracted, and that instead of working she was busied with the
little girls who were playing.

" Ah ! I've caught you ! " cried she. " That is the way you
work! I'll make you work with a cowhide, I will."

The stranger, without leaving his chair, turned towards the
Thenardiess.

388 Les Miserables

" Madame," said he, smiling diffidently. " Pshaw ! let her
play ! "

On the part of any traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton,
and drunk two bottles of wine at his supper, and who had not
had the appearance of a horrid pauper, such a wish would have
been a command. But that a man who wore that hat should
allow himself to have a desire, and that a man who wore that
coat should permit himself to have a wish, was what the Thenar-
diess thought ought not to be tolerated. She replied sharply :

" She must work, for she eats. I don't support her to do
nothing."

" What is it she is making? " said the stranger, in that gentle
voice which contrasted so strangely with his beggar's clothes
and his porter's shoulders.

The Thenardiess deigned to answer.

" Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls who
have none, worth speaking of, and will soon be going barefooted."

The man looked at Cosette's poor red feet, and continued :

" When will she finish that pair of stockings ? "

" It will take her at least three or four good days, the lazy
thing."

" And how much might this pair of stockings be worth, when
it is finished ? "

The Thenardiess cast a disdainful glance at him.

" At least thirty sous."

" Would you take five francs for them ? " said the man.

" Goodness ! " exclaimed a waggoner who was listening, with
a horse-laugh, " five francs? It's a humbug! five bullets! "

Thenardier now thought it time to speak.

" Yes, monsieur, if it is your fancy, you can have that pair
of stockings for five francs. We can't refuse anything to
travellers."

" You must pay for them now," said the Thenardiess, in her
short and peremptory way.

" I will buy that pair of stockings," answered the man, " and,"
added he, drawing a five franc piece from his pocket and laying
it on the table, " I will pay for them."

Then he turned towards Cosette.

" Now your work belongs to me. Play, my child."

The waggoner was so affected by the five franc piece, that he
left his glass and went to look at it.

" It's so, that's a fact! " cried he, as he looked at it. " A
regular hindwheel! and no counterfeit! "

Cosette

The"nardier approached, and silentlv nnt- *K. •
pocket. the Pjece m his

She bit her lii

a terrible voice

. Thenardier returned to his drink. His wife whispered in
|| What can that yellow man be? "

= -

listened to Eponine with wonder
Meanwhile, the drinkers were singing an obscene son* at
whzch they laughed enough to shake L room ThSdier
encouraged and accompanied them

a ane °f

ma^er wt^a vkaine? °f ^thing> cMdren make a doll of no
matter what. While Epomne and Azelma were dressing up the

390 Les Miserables

cat, Cosette, for her part, had dressed up the sword. That done,
she had laid it upon her arm, and was singing it softly to sleep.

The doll is one of the most imperious necessities, and at the
same time one of the most charming instincts of female child-
hood. To care for, to clothe, to adorn, to dress, to undress, to
dress over again, to teach, to scold a little, to rock, to cuddle,
to put to sleep, to imagine that something is somebody — all the
future of woman is there. Even while musing and prattling,
while making little wardrobes and little baby-clothes, while
sewing little dresses, little bodices, and little jackets, the child
becomes a little girl, the little girl becomes a great girl, the
great girl becomes a woman. The first baby takes the place
of the last doll.

A little girl without a doll is almost as unfortunate and quite
as impossible as a woman without children.

Cosette had therefore made a doll of her sword.

The Thenardiess, on her part, approached the yellow man.
""My husband is right," thought she; "it may be Monsieur
Laffitte. Some rich men are so odd."

She came and rested her elbow on the table at which he was
sitting.

" Monsieur," said she —

At this word monsieur, the man turned. The Thenardiess
had called him before only brave man or good man.

" You see, monsieur," she pursued, putting on her sweetest
look, which was still more unendurable than her ferocious
manner, " I am very willing the child should play, I am not
opposed to it; it is well for once, because you are generous.
But, you see, she is poor; she must work."

" The child is not yours, then? " asked the man.

" Oh dear ! no, monsieur ! It is a little pauper that we have
taken in through charity. A sort of imbecile child. She must
have water on her brain. Her head is big, as you see. We do
all we can for her, but we are not rich. We write in vain to
her country; for six months we have had no answer. We
think that her mother must be dead."

" Ah ! " said the man, and he fell back into his reverie.

" This mother was no great things," added the Thenardiess.
" She abandoned her child."

During all this conversation, Cosette, as if an instinct had
warned her that they were talking about her, had not taken
her eyes from the Thenardiess. She listened. She heard a
few words here and there.

Cosette

391

Meanwhile the drinkers, all three-quarters drunk, were
repeating their foul chorus with redoubled gaiety. It was
highly spiced with jests, in which the names of the Virgin and
the child Jesus were often heard. The Thenardiess had gone
to take her part in the hilarity. Cosette, under the table, was
looking into the fire, which was reflected from her fixed eye;
she was again rocking the sort of rag baby that she had made,
and as she rocked it, she sang in a low voice; " My mother is
dead ! my mother is dead ! my mother is dead ! "

At the repeated entreaties of the hostess, the yellow man,
" the millionaire," finally consented to sup.

" What will monsieur have? "

" Some bread and cheese," said the man.

" Decidedly, it is a beggar," thought the Thenardiess.

The revellers continued to sing their songs, and the child,
under the table, also sang hers.

All at once, Cosette stopped. She had just turned and seen
the little Thenardiers' doll, which they had forsaken for the cat
and left on the floor, a few steps from the kitchen table.

Then she let the bundled-up sword, that only half satisfied
her, fall, and ran her eyes slowly around the room. The Thenar-
diess was whispering to her husband and counting some money,
Eponine and Azelma were playing with the cat, the travellers
were eating or drinking or singing, nobody was looking at her.
She had not a moment to lose. She crept out from under the
table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that nobody
was watching her, then darted quickly to the doll, and seized it.
An instant afterwards she was at her place, seated, motionless,
only turned in such a way as to keep the doll that she held in
her arms in the shadow. The happiness of playing with a doll
was so rare to her that it had all the violence of rapture.

Nobody had seen her, except the traveller, who was slowly
eating his meagre supper.

This joy lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour.

But in spite of Cosette's precautions, she did not perceive
that one of the doll's feet stuck out, and that the fire of the fire-
place lighted it up very vividly. This rosy and luminous foot
which protruded from the shadow suddenly caught Azelma's
eye, and she said to Eponine : " Oh ! sister ! "
' The two little girls stopped, stupefied; Cosette had dared to
take the doll.

Eponine got up, and without letting go of the cat, went to
her mother and began to pull at her skirt.

392 Les Miserables

" Let me alone," said the mother; " what do you want? "

" Mother/' said the child, " look there."

And she pointed at Cosette.

Cosette, wholly absorbed in the ecstasy of her possession,
saw and heard nothing else.

The face of the Thenardiess assumed the peculiar expression
which is composed of the terrible mingled with the common-
place, and which has given this class of women the name of
furies.

This time wounded pride exasperated her anger still more.
Cosette had leaped over all barriers. Cosette had laid her
hands upon the doll of " those young ladies." A czarina who
had seen a moujik trying on the grand cordon of her imperial
son would have had the same expression.

She cried with a voice harsh with indignation:

"Cosette!"

Cosette shuddered as if the earth had quaked beneath her.
She turned around.

" Cosette ! " repeated the Thenardiess.

Cosette took the doll and placed it gently on the floor with a
kind of veneration mingled with despair. Then, without taking
away her eyes, she joined her hands, and, what is frightful to
tell in a child of that age, she wrung them ; then, what none of
the emotions of the day had drawn from her, neither the run in
the wood, nor the weight of the bucket of water, nor the loss of
the money, nor the sight of the cowhide, nor even the stern
words she had heard from the Thenardiess, she burst into tears.
She sobbed.

Meanwhile the traveller arose.

" What is the matter? " said he to the Thenardiess.

" Don't you see? " said the Thenardiess, pointing with her
finger to the corpus delicti lying at Cosette's feet.

" Well, what is that? " said the man.

" That beggar," answered the Thenardiess, " has dared to
touch the children's doll."

" All this noise about that? " said the man. " Well, what if
she did play with that doll? "

" She has touched it with her dirty hands ! " continued the
Thenardiess, " with her horrid hands ! "

Here Cosette redoubled her sobs.

" Be still! " cried the Thenardiess.

The man walked straight to the street door, opened it, and
went out.

Cosette

393

As soon as he haa 5one, tin, Thenardiess profited by his
absence to give Cosette under the taou, . <;p.vere KUAV ,vhich
made the child shriek.

The door opened again, and the man reappeared, holding in
his hands the fabulous doll of which we have spoken, and which
had been the admiration of all the youngsters of the village
since morning ; he stood it up before Cosette, saying :

" Here, this is for you."

It is probable that during the time he had been there — more
than an hour — in the midst of his reverie, he had caught con-
fused glimpses of this toy-shop, lighted up with lamps and
candles so splendidly that it shone through the bar-room
window like an illumination.

Cosette raised her eyes ; she saw the man approach her with
that doll as she would have seen the sun approach, she heard
those astounding words: This is for you. She looked at him,
she looked at the doll, then she drew back slowly, and went and
hid as far as she could under the table in the corner of the room.

She wept no more, she cried no more, she had the appearance
of no longer daring to breathe.

The Thenardiess, Eponine, and Azelma were so many statues.
Even the drinkers stopped. There was a solemn silence in the
whole bar-room.

The Thenardiess, petrified and mute, recommenced her con-
jectures anew: " What is this old fellow? is he a pauper? is
he a millionaire ? Perhaps he's both, that is a robber."

The face of the husband Thenardier presented that expressive
wrinkle which marks the human countenance whenever the
dominant instinct appears in it with all its brutal power. The
innkeeper contemplated by turns the doll and the traveller; he
seemed to be scenting this man as he would have scented a bag
of money. This only lasted for a moment. He approached
his wife and whispered to her:

" That machine cost at least thirty francs. No nonsense.
Down on your knees before the man ! "

Coarse natures have this in common with artless natures,
that they have no transitions.

" Well, Cosette," said the Thenardiess in a voice which was
meant to be sweet, and which was entirely composed of the soul-
honey of vicious women, " a'n't you going to take your doll?
Cosette ventured to come out of her hole.
" My little Cosette," said Thenardier with a caressing air,
" Monsieur gives you a doll. Take it. It is yours."

394 kes Miserables

Cosette looked upon the wo~J~iruJ 4°** wth a sort of terror.
Her fa^ -^ still floo^-^ Wlth tears, but her eyes began to fill,
I.-AC the sky in the breaking of the dawn, with strange radiations
of joy. What she experienced at that moment was almost like
what she would have felt if some one had said to her suddenly :
Little girl, you are queen of France.

It seemed to her that if she touched that doll, thunder would
spring forth from it.

Which was true to some extent, for she thought that the
Thenardiess would scold and beat her.

However, the attraction overcame her. She finally approached
and timidly murmured, turning towards the Thenardiess :

" Can I, madame? "

No expression can describe her look, at once full of despair,
dismay, and transport.

"Good Lord!" said the Th6nardiess, "it is yours. Since
monsieur gives it to you."

" Is it true, is it true, monsieur? " said Cosette; " is the lady
forme?"

The stranger appeared to have his eyes full of tears. He
seemed to be at that stage of emotion in which one does not
speak for fear of weeping. He nodded assent to Cosette, and
put the hand of " the lady " in her little hand.

Cosette withdrew her hand hastily, as if that of the lady
burned her, and looked down at the floor. We are compelled
to add, that at that instant she thrust out her tongue enormously.
All at once she turned, and seized the doll eagerly.

" I will call her Catharine," said she.

.It was a strange moment when Cosette's rags met and pressed
against the ribbons and the fresh pink muslins of the doll.

" Madame," said she, " may I put her in a chair? "

" Yes, my child," answered the Thenardiess.

It was Eponine and Azelma now who looked upon Cosette
with envy.

Cosette placed Catharine on a chair, then sat down on the
floor before her, and remained motionless, without saying a
word, in the attitude of contemplation.

" Why don't you play, Cosette? " said the stranger.

"Oh! I am playing," answered the child.

This stranger, this unknown man, who seemed like a visit
from Providence to Cosette, was at that moment the being
which the Thenardiess hated more than aught else in the world.
However, she was compelled to restrain herself. Her emotions

Cosette

395

were more than she could endure, accustomed as she was to
dissimulation, by endeavouring to copy her husband in all her
actions. She sent her daughters to bed immediately, then
asked the yellow man's permission to send Cosette to bed —
who is very tired to-day, added she, with a motherly air. Cosette
went to bed, holding Catharine in her arms.

The Thenardiess went from time to time to the other end of
the room, where her husband was, to soothe her soul, she said.
She exchanged a few words with him, which were the more
furious that she did not dare to speak them aloud : —

" The old fool ! what has he got into his head, to come here
to disturb us ! to want that little monster to play ! to give her
dolls ! to give forty-franc dolls to a slut that I wouldn't give
forty sous for. A little more, and he would say your majesty
to her, as they do to the Duchess of Berry ! Is he in his senses ?
he must be crazy, the strange old fellow ! "

"Why? It is very simple," replied Thenardier. "If it
amuses him! It amuses you for the girl to work; it amuses
him for her to play. He has the right to do it. A traveller
can do as he likes, if he pays for it. If this old fellow is a
philanthropist, what is that to you? if he is crazy it don't
concern you. What do you interfere for, as long as he has
money ? "

Language of a master and reasoning of an innkeeper, which
neither in one case nor the other admits of reply.

The man had leaned his elbows on the table, and resumed his
attitude of reverie. All the other travellers, pedlars, and
waggoners, had drawn back a little, and sung no more. They
looked upon him from a distance with a sort of respectful fear.

This solitary man, so poorly clad, who took five-franc pieces
from his pocket with so much indifference, and who lavished
gigantic dolls on little brats in wooden shoes, was certainly a
magnificent and formidable goodman.

Several hours passed away. The midnight mass was said,
the revel was finished, the drinkers had gone, the house was
closed, the room was deserted, the fire had gone out, the stranger
still remained in the same place and in the same posture. From-
time to time he changed the elbow on which he rested. That
was all. But he had not spoken a word since Cosette was gone.

The Thenardiers alone, out of propriety and curiosity, had
remained in the room.

" Is he going to spend the night like this? " grumbled the
Thenardiess. When the clock struck two in the morning, she

396

Les Miserables

acknowledged herself beaten, and said to her husband : " I am
going to bed, you may do as you like." The husband sat down
at a table in a corner, lighted a candle, and began to read the
Courrier Franfais.

A good hour passed thus. The worthy innkeeper had read
the Courrier Franfais at least three times, from the date of the
number to the name of the printer. The stranger did not stir.

Thenardier moved, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked
his chair. The man did not stir. " Is he asleep? " thought
Thenardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse
him.

Finally, Thenardier took off his cap, approached softly, and
ventured to say : —

" Is monsieur not going to repose? "

Not going to bed would have seemed to him too much and too
familiar. To repose implied luxury, and there was respect in it.
Such words have the mysterious and wonderful property of
swelling the bill in the morning. A room in which you go ta
bed costs twenty sous ; a room in which you repose costs twenty
francs.

" Yes," said the stranger, " you are right. Where is your
stable? "

" Monsieur," said Thenardier, with a smile, " I will conduct
monsieur."

He took the candle, the man took his bundle and his staff,
and Thenardier led him into a room on the first floor, which
was very showy, furnished all in mahogany, with a high-post
bedstead and red calico curtains.

" What is this? " said the traveller.

" It is properly our bridal chamber," said the innkeeper.
" We occupy another like this, my spouse and I ; this is not
open more than three or four times in a year."

" I should have liked the stable as well," said the man,
bluntly.

Thenardier did not appear to hear this not very civil answer.

He lighted two entirely new wax candles, which were dis-
played upon the mantel; a good fire was blazing in the fire-
place. There was on the mantel, under a glass case, a woman's
head-dress of silver thread and orange-flowers.

" What is this? " said the stranger.

" Monsieur," said Thenardier, " it is my wife's bridal
cap."

The traveller looked at the object with a look which seemed

Cosette 397

to say : " there was a moment, then, when this monster was a
virgin."

Thenardier lied, however. When he hired this shanty to
turn it into a chop-house, he found the room thus furnished,
and bought this furniture, and purchased at second-hand these
orange-flowers, thinking that this would cast a gracious light
over " his spouse," and that the house would derive from them
what the English call respectability.

When the traveller turned again the host had disappeared.
Thenardier had discreetly taken himself out of the way without
daring to say good-night, not desiring to treat with a disrespect-
ful cordiality a man whom he proposed to skin royally in the
morning. .

The innkeeper retired to this room; his wife was m bed, but
not asleep. When she heard her husband's step, she turned
towards him, and said:

" You know that I am going to kick Cosette out doors
to-morrow ! "

Thenardier coolly answered:
" You are, indeed ! "

They exchanged no further words, and in a few moments
their candle was blown out.

For his part, the traveller had put his staff and bundle in a
corner. The host gone, he sat down in an arm-chair, and
remained some time thinking. Then he drew off his shoes, took
one of the two candles, blew out the other, pushed open the
door, and went out of the room, looking about him as if he were
searching for something. He passed through a hall, and came
to the stairway. There he heard a very soft little sound, which
resembled the breathing of a child. Guided by this sound he
came to a sort of triangular nook built under the stairs, or,
rather, formed by the staircase itself. This hole was nothing
but the space beneath the stairs. There, among all sorts of old
baskets and old rubbish, in the dust and among the cobwebs,
there was a bed; if a mattress so full of holes as to show the
straw and a covering so full of holes as to show the mattress,
can be called a bed. There were no sheets. This was placed
on the floor immediately on the tiles. In this bed Cosette was
sleeping.

The man approached and looked at her.
Cosette was sleeping soundly; she was dressed. In the
winter she did not undress on account of the cold. She held
the doll clasped in her arms; its large open eyes shone in the

398

Lcs Miserables

obscurity. From time to time she heaved a deep sigh, as if
she were about to wake, and she hugged the doll almost con-
vulsively. There was only one of her wooden shoes at the
side of her bed. An open door near Cosette's nook disclosed a
large dark room. The stranger entered. At the further end,
through a glass window, he perceived two little beds with very
white spreads. They were those of Azelma and Eponine. Half
hid behind these beds was a willow cradle without curtains, in
which the little boy who had cried all the evening was sleeping.

The stranger conjectured that this room communicated with
that of the Thenardiers. He was about to withdraw when his
eye fell upon the fireplace, one of those huge tavern fireplaces
where there is always so little fire, when there is a fire, and
which are so cold to look upon. In this one there was no fire,
there were not even any ashes. What there was, however,
attracted the traveller's attention. It was two little children's
shoes, of coquettish shape and of different sizes. The traveller
remembered the graceful and immemorial custom of children
putting their shoes in the fireplace on Christmas night, to wait
there in the darkness in expectation of some shining gift from
their good fairy. Eponine and Azelma had taken good care
not to forget this, and each had put one of her shoes in the
fireplace.

The traveller bent over them.

The fairy — that is to say, the mother — had already made her
visit, and shining in each shoe was a beautiful new ten-sous
piece.

The man rose up and was on the point of going away, when
he perceived further along, by itself, in the darkest corner of
the fireplace, another object. He looked, and recognised a
shoe, a horrid wooden shoe of the clumsiest sort, half broken
and covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's shoe.
Cosette, with that touching confidence of childhood which can
always be deceived without ever being discouraged, had also
placed her shoe in the fireplace.

What a sublime and sweet thing is hope in a child who has
never known anything but despair!

There was nothing in this wooden shoe.

The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over, and dropped
into Cosette's shoe a gold Louis.

Then he went back to his room with stealthy tread.

Cosette 399

THENARDIER MANOEUVRING

ON the following morning, at least two hours before day,
Thenardier, seated at a table in the bar-room, a candle by his
side, with pen in hand, was making out the bill of the traveller
in the yellow coat.

His wife was standing, half bent over him, following him
with her eyes. Not a word passed between them. It was, on
one side, a profound meditation, on the other that religious
admiration with which we observe a marvel of the human mind
spring up and expand. A noise was heard in the house; it was
the lark, sweeping the stairs.

After a good quarter of an hour and some erasures, Thenardier
produced this masterpiece.

Bill of Monsieur in No. i.

Supper 3 frs.

Room I0 »

Candle 5 »

Fire 4 «

Service . • • • • • : »

Total . 23 frs.

Service was written servisse.

"Twenty-three francs!" exclaimed the woman, with an
enthusiasm which was mingled with some hesitation.

Like all great artists, Thenardier was not satisfied.

" Pooh ! " said he.

It was the accent of Castlereagh drawing up for the Congress
of Vienna the bill which France was to pay.

"Monsieur Thenardier, you are right, he deserves it,"
murmured the woman, thinking of the doll given to Cosette in
the presence of her daughters; " it is right! but it's too much.
He won't pay it."

Thenardier put on his cold laugh, and said : " He will pay it.

This laugh was the highest sign of certainty and authority.
What was thus said, must be. The woman did not insist.
She began to arrange the tables; the husband walked back and
forth in the room. A moment after he added :

" I owe, at least, fifteen hundred francs ! "

He seated himself thoughtfully in the chimney corner, his
feet in the warm ashes.

400 Les Miserables

" Ah ha ! " replied the woman, " you don't forget that I kick
Cosette out of the house to-day? The monster! it tears my
vitals to see her with her doll! I would rather marry Louis
XVIII. than keep her in the house another day ! "

Thenardier lighted his pipe, and answered between two puffs:

" You'll give the bill to the man."

Then he went out.

He was scarcely out of the room when the traveller came in.

Thenardier reappeared immediately behind him, and remained
motionless in the half-open door, visible only to his wife.

The yellow man carried his staff and bundle in his hand.

" Up so soon ! " said the Thenardiess; " is monsieur going to
leave us already? "

While speaking, she turned the bill in her hands with an
embarrassed look, and made creases in it with her nails. Her
hard face exhibited a shade of timidity and doubt that was
not habitual.

To present such a bill to a man who had so perfectly the
appearance of " a pauper " seemed too awkward to her.

The traveller appeared pre-occupied and absent-minded.

He answered:

" Yes, madame, I am going away."

" Monsieur, then, had no business at Montfermeil ? " replied she.

"No, I am passing through; that is all. Madame," added
he, "what do I owe?"

The Thenardiess, without answering, handed him the folded
bill.

The man unfolded the paper and looked at it; but his thoughts
were evidently elsewhere.

" Madame," replied he, " do you do a good business in
Montfermeil?"

" So-so, monsieur," answered the Thenardiess, stupefied at
seeing no other explosion.

She continued in a mournful and lamenting strain :

" Oh ! monsieur, the times are very hard, and then we have
so few rich people around here ! It is a very little place, you
see. If we only had rich travellers now and then, like monsieur !
We have so many expenses! Why, that little girl eats us out
of house and home."

"What little girl?"

" Why, the little girl you know! Cosette! the lark, as they
call her about here ! "

" Ah ! " said the man.

Cosette 401

She continued:

" How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She
looks more like a bat than a lark. You see, monsieur, we don't
ask charity, but we are not able to give it. We make nothing,
and have a great deal to pay. The licence, the excise, the doors
and windows, the tax on everything! Monsieur knows that
the government demands a deal of money. And then I have
my own girls. I have nothing to spend on other people's
children."

The man replied in a voice which he endeavoured to render
indifferent, and in which there was a slight tremulousness.

" Suppose you were relieved of her? "

"Who? Cosette?"

" Yes."

The red and violent face of the woman became illumined
with a hideous expression.

"Ah, monsieur! my good monsieur! take her, keep her,
take her away, carry her off, sugar her, stuff her, drink her,
eat her, and be blessed by the holy Virgin and all the saints in
Paradise ! "

" Agreed."

" Really ! you will take her away? "

" I will."

" Immediately? "

" Immediately. Call the child."

" Cosette ! " cried the Thenardiess.

" In the meantime," continued the man, " I will pay my bill.
How much is it? "

He cast a glance at the bill, and could not repress a movement
of surprise.

" Twenty-three francs? "

He looked at the hostess and repeated :

" Twenty-three francs? "

There was, in the pronunciation of these two sentences, thus
repeated, the accent which lies between the point of exclamation
and the point of interrogation.

The Thenardiess had had time to prepare herself for the shock.
She replied with assurance:

" Yes, of course, monsieur! it is twenty-three francs."

The stranger placed five five-franc pieces upon the table.

" Go for the little girl," said he.

At this moment Thenardier advanced into the middle of the
room and said:

402 Les Miserables

" Monsieur owes twenty-six sous."

" Twenty-six sous! " exclaimed the woman.

" Twenty sous for the room," continued Thenardier coldly,
" and six for supper. As to the little girl, I must have some
talk with monsieur about that. Leave us, wife."

The Thenardiess was dazzled by one of those unexpected
flashes which emanate from talent. She felt that the great
actor had entered upon the scene, answered not a word, and
went out.

As soon as they were alone, Thenardier offered the traveller
a chair. The traveller sat down, but Thenardier remained
standing, and his face assumed a singular expression of good-
nature and simplicity.

" Monsieur," said he, " listen, I must say that I adore this
child."

The stranger looked at him steadily.

"What child?"

Thenardier continued:

" How strangely we become attached ! What is all this
silver? Take back your money. This child I adore."

" Who is that? " asked the stranger.

" Oh, our little Cosette ! And you wish to take her away
from us ? Indeed, I speak frankly, as true as you are an honour-
able man, I cannot consent to it. I should miss her. I have
had her since she was very small. It is true, she costs us money ;
it is true she has her faults, it is true we are not rich, it is true I
paid four hundred francs for medicines at one time when she
was sick. But we must do something for God. She has neither
father nor mother; I have brought her up. I have bread
enough for her and for myself. In fact, I must keep this child.
You understand, we have affections ; I am a good beast ; myself ;
I do not reason ; I love this little girl ; my wife is hasty, but she
loves her also. You see, she is like our own child. I feel the
need of her prattle in the house."

The stranger was looking steadily at him all the while. He
continued:

" Pardon me, excuse me, monsieur, but one does not give his
child like that to a traveller. Isn't it true that I am right?
After that, I don't say — you are rich and4have the appearance
of a very fine man — if it is for her advantage, — but I must
know about it. You understand? On the supposition that
I should let her go and sacrifice my own feelings, I should want
to know where she is going. I would not want to lose sight of

Cosette

4°3

her, I should want to know who she was with, that I might come
and see her now and then, and that she might know that her
good foster-father was still watching over her. Finally, there
are things which are not possible. I do not know even your
name. If you should take her away, I should say, alas for the
little Lark, where has she gone? I must, at least, see some
poor rag of paper, a bit of a passport, something."

The stranger, without removing from him this gaze which
went, so to speak, to the bottom of his conscience, answered in
a severe and firm tone:

" Monsieur Thenardier, people do not take a passport to come
we leagues from Paris. If I take Cosette, I take her, that is
You will not know my name, you will not know my abode,
/ou will not know where she goes, and my intention is that she
shall never see you again in her life. Do you agree to that?
Yes or no ? "

As demons and genii recognise by certain signs the presence
of a superior God, Thenardier comprehended that he had to
deal with one who was very powerful. It came like an intuition ;
he understood it with his clear and quick sagacity; although
during the evening he had been drinking with the waggoners,
smoking, and singing bawdy songs, still he was observing the
stranger all the while, watching him like a cat, and studying
him like a mathematician. He had been observing him on his
own account, for pleasure and by instinct, and at the same
time lying in wait as if he had been paid for it. Not a gesture,
not a movement of the man in the yellow coat had escaped him.
Before even the stranger had so clearly shown his interest in
Cosette, Thenardier had divined it. He had surprised the
searching glances of the old man constantly returning to the
child. Why this interest? What was this man? Why, with
so much money in his purse, this miserable dress? These were
questions which he put to himself without being able to answer
them, and they irritated him. He had been thinking it over
all night. This could not be the Cosette's father. Was it a
grandfather? Then why did he not make himself known at
once? When a man has a right, he shows it. This man
evidently had no right to Cosette. Then who was he? The-
nardier was lost in conjectures. He caught glimpses of every-
thing, but saw nothing. However it might be, when he
commenced the conversation with this man, sure that there
was a secret in all this, sure that the man had an interest in
remaining unknown, he felt himself strong; at the stranger's

404 Les Miserables

clear and firm answer, when he saw that this mysterious person-
age was mysterious and nothing more, he felt weak. He was
expecting nothing of the kind. His conjectures were put to
flight. He rallied 'his ideas. He weighed all in a second.
Thenardier was one of those men who comprehend a situation
at a glance. He decided that this was the moment to advance
straightforward and swiftly. He did what great captains do
at that decisive instant which they alone can recognise; he
unmasked his battery at once.

" Monsieur," said he, " I must have fifteen hundred
francs."

The stranger took from his side-pocket an old black leather
pocket-book, opened it, and drew forth three bank bills which
he placed upon the table. He then rested his large thumb on
these bills, and said to the tavern-keeper.

" Bring Cosette."

While this was going on what was Cosette doing ?

Cosette, as soon as she awoke, had run to her wooden shoe.
She had found the gold piece in it. It was not a Napoleon,
but one of those new twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration,
on the face of which the little Prussian queue had replaced the
laurel crown. Cosette was dazzled. Her destiny began to
intoxicate her. She did not know that it was a piece of gold ;
she had never seen one before; she hastily concealed it in her
pocket as if she had stolen it. Nevertheless she felt it boded
good to her. She divined whence the gift came, but she ex-
perienced a joy that was filled with awe. She was gratified;
she was moreover stupefied. Such magnificent and beautiful
things seemed unreal to her. The doll made her afraid, the gold
piece made her afraid. She trembled with wonder before these
magnificences. The stranger himself did not make her afraid.
On the contrary, he reassured her. Since the previous evening,
amid all her astonishment, and in her sleep, she was thinking
in her little child's mind of this man who had such an old, and
poor, and sad appearance, and who was so rich and so kind.
Since she had met this goodman in the wood, it seemed as
though all things were changed about her. Cosette, less happy
than the smallest swallow of the sky, had never known what
it is to take refuge under a mother's wing. For five years,
that is to say, as far back as she could remember, the poor child
had shivered and shuddered. She had always been naked
under the biting north wind of misfortune, and now it seemed
to her that she was clothed. Before her soul was cold, now it

Cosette 405

was warm. Cosette was no longer1 afraid of the Thenardiers;
she was no longer alone ; she had somebody to look to.

She hurriedly set herself to her morning task. This louis,
which she had placed in the same pocket of her apron from
which the fifteen-sous piece had fallen the night before, dis-
tracted her attention from her work. She did not dare to
touch it, but she spent five minutes at a time contemplating
it, and we must confess, with her tongue thrust out. While
sweeping the stairs, she stopped and stood there, motionless,
forgetting her broom, and the whole world besides, occupied in
looking at this shining star at the bottom of her pocket.

It was in one of these reveries that the Thenardiess found her.
At the command of her husband, she had gone to look for her.
Wonderful to tell, she did not give her a slap nor even call her
a hard name.

" Cosette," said she, almost gently, " come quick."
An instant after, Cosette entered the bar-room.
The stranger took the bundle he had brought and untied it.
This bundle contained a little woollen frock, an apron, a coarse
cotton under-garment, a petticoat, a scarf, woollen stockings,
and shoes — a complete dress for a girl of seven years. It was
all in black.

" My child," said the man, " take this and go and dress
yourself quick."

The day was breaking when those of the inhabitants of
Montfermeil who were beginning to open their doors, saw pass
on the road to Paris a poorly clad goodman leading a little girl
dressed in mourning who had a pink doll in her arms. They
were going towards Livry.

It was the stranger and Cosette.

No one recognised the man ; as Cosette was not now in tatters,
few recognised her.

Cosette was going away. With whom? She was ignorant.
Where? She knew not. All she understood was, that she
was leaving behind the Thenardier chop-house. Nobody had
thought of bidding her good-by, nor had she of bidding good-by
to anybody. She went out from that house, hated and hating.
Poor gentle being, whose heart had only been crushed hithert
Cosette walked seriously along, opening her large eyes an<
looking at the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her
new apron. From time to time she bent over and cast a glance
at it, and then looked at the goodman. She felt somewhat as
if she were near God. -

406 Les Miserables

WHO SEEKS THE BEST MAY FIND THE WORST

THE Thenardiess, according to her custom, had left her husband
alone. She was expecting great events. When the man and
Cosette were gone, Thenardier, after a good quarter of an hour,
took her aside, and showed her the fifteen hundred francs.

" What's that? " said she.

It was the first time, since the beginning of their housekeeping,
that she had dared to criticise the act of her master.

He felt the blow.

" True, you are right," said he; " I am a fool. Give me my
hat."

He folded the three bank bills, thrust them into his pocket,
and started in all haste, but he missed the direction and took
the road to the right. Some neighbours of whom he inquired
put him on the track; the Lark and the man had been seen
to go in the direction of Livry. He followed this indication,
walking rapidly and talking to himself.

" This man is evidently a millionaire dressed in yellow, and
as for me, I am a brute. He first gave twenty sous, then five
francs, then fifty francs, then fifteen hundred francs, all so
readily. He would have given fifteen thousand francs. But
I shall catch him."

And then this bundle of clothes, made ready beforehand for
the little girl; all that was strange, there was a good deal of
mystery under it. When one gets hold of a mystery, he does
not let go of it. The secrets of the rich are sponges full of gold ;
a man ought to know how to squeeze them. All these thoughts
were whirling in his brain. " I am a brute," said he.

On leaving Montfermeil and reaching the turn made by the
road to Livry, the route may be seen for a long distance on the
plateau. On reaching this point he counted on being able to
see the man and the little girl. He looked as far as his eye
could reach, but saw nothing. He inquired again. In the
meanwhile he was losing time. The passers-by told him that
the man and child whom he sought had travelled towards the
wood in the direction of Gagny. He hastened in this direction.

They had the start of him, but a child walks slowly, and he
went rapidly. And then the country was well known to him.

Cosette 407

Suddenly he stopped and struck his forehead like a man who
has forgotten the main thing, and who thinks of retracing his
steps.

" I ought to have taken my gun! " said he.

Thenardier was one of those double natures who sometimes
appear among us without our knowledge, and disappear without
ever being known, because destiny has shown us but one side
of them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half sub-
merged. In a quiet ordinary situation, Thenardier had all
that is necessary to make — we do not say to be — what passes
for an honest tradesman, a good citizen. At the same time,
under certain circumstances, under the operation of certain
occurrences exciting his baser nature, he had in him all that was
necessary to be a villain. He was a shopkeeper, in which lay
hidden a monster. Satan ought for a moment to have squatted
in some corner of the hole in which Thenardier lived and studied
this hideous masterpiece.

After hesitating an instant:

" Bah ! " thought he, " they would have time to escape ! "

And he continued on his way, going rapidly forward, and
almost as if he were certain, with the sagacity of the fox scenting
a flock of partridges.

In fact, when he had passed the ponds, and crossed obliquely
the large meadow at the right of the avenue de Bellevue, as he
reached the grassy path which nearly encircles the hill, and
which covers the arch of the old aqueduct of the abbey of
Chelles, he perceived above a bush, the hat on which he had
already built so many conjectures. It was the man's hat.
The bushes were low. Thenardier perceived that the man and
Cosette were seated there. The child could not be seen, she was
so short, but he could see the head of the doll.

Thenardier was not deceived. The man had sat down there
to give Cosette a little rest. The chop-house keeper turned
aside the bushes, and suddenly appeared before the eyes of
those whom he sought.

" Pardon me, excuse me, monsieur," said he, all out of
breath; " but here are your fifteen hundred francs."

So saying, he held out the three bank bills to the stranger.

The man raised his eyes:

" What does that mean? "

Thenardier answered respectfully :

" Monsieur, that means that I take back Cosette."

Cosette shuddered, and hugged close to the goodman.

408

Les Miserables

He answered, looking Thenardier straight in the eye, and
spacing his syllables.

" You— take— back— Cosette ? "

" Yes, monsieur, I take her back. I tell you I have reflected.
Indeed, I haven't the right to give her to you. I am an honest
man, you see. This little girl is not mine. She belongs to her
mother. Her mother has confided her to me ; I can only give
her up to her mother. You will tell me: But her mother is
dead. Well. In that case, I can only give up the child to a
person who shall bring me a written order, signed by the
mother, stating I should deliver the child to him. That is
clear."

The man, without answering, felt in his pocket, and Thenar-
dier saw the pocket-book containing the bank bills reappear.

The tavern-keeper felt a thrill of joy.

"Good!" thought he; "hold on. He is going to corrupt
me!"

Before opening the pocket-book, the traveller cast a look
about him. The place was entirely deserted. There was not
a soul either in the wood, or in the valley. The man opened
the pocket-book, and drew from it, not the handful of bank-
bills which Thenardier expected, but a little piece of paper,
which he unfolded and presented open to the innkeeper,
saying :

" You are right. Read that ! "

Thenardier took the paper and read.

" M sur M , March 25, 1823.

" Monsieur Thenardier:

" You will deliver Cosette to the bearer. He will settle all
small debts.

" I have the honour to salute you with consideration.

" FANTINE "

" You know that signature? " replied the man.

It was indeed the signature of Fantine. Thenardier recog-
nised it.

There was nothing to say. He felt doubly enraged, enraged
at being compelled to give up the bribe which he hoped for,
and enraged at being beaten. The man added:

" You can keep this paper as your receipt."

Thenardier retreated in good order.

" This signature is very well imitated," he grumbled between
his teeth. " Well, so be 'it ! "

Cosette

409

Then he made a desperate effort.

" Monsieur," said he, " it is all right. Then you are the
person. But you must settle ' all small debts.' " There is a
large amount due to me."

The man rose to his feet, and said at the same time, snapping
with his thumb and finger some dust from his threadbare sleeve :

" Monsieur Thenardier, in January the mother reckoned that
she owed you a hundred and twenty francs; you sent her in
February a memorandum of five hundred francs; you received
three hundred francs at the end of February, and three hundred
at the beginning of March. There has since elapsed nine
months which, at fifteen francs per month, the price agreed
upon, amounts to a hundred and thirty-five francs. You had
received a hundred francs in advance. There remain thirty-
five francs due you. I have just given you fifteen hundred
francs."

Thenardier felt what the wolf feels the moment when he finds
himself seized and crushed by the steel jaws of the trap.

" What is this devil of a man? " thought he.

He did what the wolf does, he gave a spring. Audacity had
succeeded with him once already.

" Monsieur-I-don't-know-your-name," said he resolutely,
and putting aside this time all show of respect. " I shall
take back Cosette or you must give me a thousand crowns."

The stranger said quietly:

" Come, Cosette."

He took Cosette with his left hand, and with the right picked
up his staff, which was on the ground.

Thenardier noted the enormous size of the cudgel, and the
solitude of the place.

The man disappeared in the wood with the child, leaving the
chop-house keeper motionless and non-plussed.

As they walked away, Thenardier observed his broad shoulders,
a little rounded, and his big fists.

Then his eyes fell back upon his own puny arms and thin
hands. " I must have been a fool indeed," thought he, " not
to have brought my gun, as I was going on a hunt."

However, the innkeeper did not abandon the pursuit.

" I must know where he goes," said he; and he began to
follow them at a distance. There remained two things in his
possession, one a bitter mockery, the piece of paper signed
Fantine, and the other a consolation, the fifteen hundred francs.

The man was leading Cosette in the direction of Livry and

4* o Les Miserables

Bondy. He was walking slowly, his head bent down, in an
attitude of reflection and sadness. The winter had bereft the
wood of foliage, so that Thenardier did not lose sight of them,
though remaining at a considerable distance behind. From time
to time the man turned, and looked to see if he were followed.
Suddenly he perceived Th6nardier. He at once entered a
coppice with Cosette, and both disappeared from sight. " The
devil! " said Thenardier. And he redoubled his pace.

The density of the thicket compelled him to approach them.
When the man reached the thickest part of the wood, he turned
again. Thenardier had endeavoured to conceal himself in the
branches in vain, he could not prevent the man from seeing
him. The man cast an uneasy glance at him, then shook his
head, and resumed his journey. The innkeeper again took up
the pursuit. They walked thus two or three hundred paces.
Suddenly the man turned again. He perceived the innkeeper.
This time he looked at him so forbiddingly that Thenardier
judged it " unprofitable " to go further. Thenardier went
home.

NUMBER 9430 COMES UP AGAIN, AND COSETTE DRAWS IT

JEAN VALJEAN was not dead.

When he fell into the sea, or rather when he threw himself
into it, he was, as we have seen, free from his irons. He swam
under water to a ship at anchor to which a boat was fastened.

He found means to conceal himself in this boat until evening.
At night he betook himself again to the water, and reached the
land a short distance from Cape Brun.

There, as he did not lack for money, he could procure clothes.
A little public-house in the environs of Balaguier was then the
place which supplied clothing for escaped convicts, a lucrative
business. Then Jean Valjean, like all those joyless fugitives
who are endeavouring to throw off the track the spy of the law
and social fatality, followed an obscure and wandering path.
He found an asylum first in Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then
he went towards Grand Villard, near Brianfon, in the Hautes
Alpes. Groping and restless flight, threading the mazes of the
mole whose windings are unknown. There were afterwards
found some trace of his passage in Ain, on the territory of

Cosette 41 1

Civrieux, in the Pyrenees at Accons, at a place called the
Grange-de-Domecq, near the hamlet of Chavailles, and in the
environs of Perigneux, at Brunies, a canton of Chapelle Gona-
guet. He finally reached Paris. We have seen him at
Montfermeil.

His first care, on reaching Paris, had been to purchase a
mourning dress for a little girl of seven years, then to procure
lodgings. That done, he had gone to Montfermeil.

It will be remembered that, at the time of his former escape,
or near that time, he had made a mysterious journey of which
justice had had some glimpse.

Moreover, he was believed to be dead, and that thickened
the obscurity which surrounded him. At Paris there fell into
his hands a paper which chronicled the fact. He felt reassured,
and almost as much at peace as if he really had been dead.

On the evening of the same day that Jean Valjean had rescued
Cosette from the clutches of the Thenardiess, he entered Paris
again. He entered the city at night-fall, with the child, by the
barriere de Monceaux. There he took a cabriolet, which carried
him as far as the esplanade of the Observatory. There he got
out, paid the driver, took Cosette by the hand, and both in the
darkness of the night, through the deserted streets in the vicinity
of 1'Ourcine and la Glaciere, walked towards the boulevard
de 1'Hopital.

The day had been strange and full of emotion for Cosette;
they had eaten behind hedges bread and cheese bought at
isolated chop-houses; they had often changed carriages, and
had travelled short distances on foot. She did not complain;
but she was tired, and Jean Valjean perceived it by her pulling
more heavily at his hand while walking. He took her in his
arms; Cosette, without letting go of Catharine, laid her head
on Jean Valjean's shoulder, and went to sleep.

BOOK FOURTH— THE OLD GORBEAU HOUSE

MASTER GORBEAU

FORTY years ago, the solitary pedestrian who ventured into
the unknown regions of La Salpetriere and went up along the
Boulevard as far as the Barriere dTtalie, reached certain points
where it might be said that Paris disappeared. It was no longer
a solitude, for there were people passing ; it was not the country,
for there were houses and streets; it was not a city, the streets
had ruts in them, like the highways, and grass grew along their
borders; it was not a village, the houses were too lofty. What
was it then ? It was an inhabited place where there was nobody,
it was a desert place where there was somebody ; it was a boule-
vard of the great city, a street of Paris, wilder, at night, than a
forest, and gloomier, by day, than a graveyard.

It was the old quarter of the Horse Market.

Our pedestrian, if he trusted himself beyond the four tumbling
walls of this Horse Market, if willing to go even further than the
Rue du Petit Banquier, leaving on his right a courtyard shut
in by lofty walls, then a meadow studded with stacks of tan-
bark that looked like the gigantic beaver dams, then an in-
closure half filled with lumber and piles of logs, sawdust and
shavings, from the top of which a huge dog was baying, then
a long, low, ruined wall with a small dark-coloured and decrepit
gate in it, covered with moss, which was full of flowers in
spring-time, then, in the loneliest spot, a frightful broken-down
structure on which could be read in large letters: POST NO
BILLS; this bold promenader, we say, would reach the corner
of the Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel, a latitude not much ex-
plored. There, near a manufactory and between two garden
walls, could be seen at the time of which we speak an old ruined
dwelling that, at first sight, seemed as small as a cottage, yet
was, in reality, as vast as a cathedral. It stood with its gable
end towards the highway, and hence its apparent diminutive-
ness. Nearly the whole house was hidden. Only the door
and one window could be seen.

412

Cosette 413

This old dwelling had but one story.

On examining it, the peculiarity that first struck the beholder
was that the door could never have been anything but the door
of a hovel, while the window, had it been cut in freestone and
not in rough material, might have been the casement of a lordly
residence.

The door was merely a collection of worm-eaten boards rudely
tacked together with cross-pieces that looked like pieces of
firewood clumsily split out. It opened directly on a steep
staircase with high steps covered with mud, plaster, and dust,
and of the same breadth as the door, and which seemed from
the street to rise perpendicularly like a ladder, and disappear
in the shadow between two walls. The top of the shapeless
opening which this door closed upon, was disguised by a narrow
topscreen, in the middle of which had been sawed a three-
cornered orifice that served both for skylight and ventilator
when the door was shut. On the inside of the door a brush
dipped in ink had, in a couple of strokes of the hand, traced
the number 52, and above the screen, the same brush had
daubed the number 50, so that a new-comer would hesitate,
asking : Where am I ?

The top of the entrance says, at number 50; the inside,
however, replies, No ! at number 52 ! The dust-coloured rags
that hung in guise of curtains about the three-cornered ventilator,
we will not attempt to describe.

The window was broad and of considerable height, with large
panes in the sashes and provided with Venetian shutters; only
the panes had received a variety of wounds which were at once
concealed and made manifest by ingenious strips and bandages
of paper, and the shutters were so broken and disjointed
that they menaced the passers-by more than they shielded the
occupants of the dwelling. The horizontal slats were lacking,
here and there, and had been very simply replaced with boards
nailed across, so that what had been a Venetian, in the first
instance, ended as a regular close shutter. This door with its
dirty look and this window with its decent though dilapidated
appearance, seen thus in one and the same building, produced
the effect of two ragged beggars bound in the same direction
and walking side by side, with different mien under the same
rags, one having always been a pauper while the other had been
a gentleman. .

The staircase led up to a very spacious interior, which Ic
like a barn converted into a house. This structure had for its

414 Les Miserables

main channel of communication a long hall, on which there
opened, on either side, apartments of different dimensions
scarcely habitable, rather resembling booths than rooms.
These chambers looked out upon the shapeless grounds of the
neighbourhood. Altogether, it was dark and dull and dreary,
even melancholy and sepulchral, and it was penetrated, either
by the dim, cold rays of the sun or by icy draughts, according
to the situation of the cracks, in the roof, or in the door. One
interesting and picturesque peculiarity of this kind of tenement
is the monstrous size of the spiders.

To the left of the main door, on the boulevard, a small window
that had been walled up formed a square niche some six feet
from the ground, which was filled with stones that passing
urchins had thrown into it.

A portion of this building has recently been pulled down, but
what remains, at the present day, still conveys an idea of what
it was. The structure, taken as a whole, is not more than a
hundred years old. A hundred years is youth to a church,
but old age to a private mansion. It would seem that the
dwelling of Man partakes of his brief existence, and the dwelling
of God, of His eternity.

The letter-carriers called the house No. 50-52; but it was
known, in the quarter, as Gorbeau House.

Let us see how it came by that title.

The " gatherers-up of unconsidered trifles " who collect
anecdotes as the herbalist his simples, and prick the fleeting
dates upon their memories with a pin, know that there lived in
Paris, in the last century, about 1770, two attorneys of the
Chatelet, one named Corbeau and the other Renard — two
names, anticipated by La Fontaine. The chance for a joke
was altogether too fine a one to be let slip by the goodly com-
pany of lawyers' clerks. So, very soon, the galleries of the
court-rooms rang with the following parody, in rather gouty
verse :

Maitre Corbeau, sur un dossier perche,
Tenait dans son bee une saisie executoire;

Maitre Renard, par 1'odeur alleche,
Lui fit a peu pres cette histoire:

He! bonjour! etc.1

1 Master Crow, on a document perched,

In his beak held a fat execution,
Master Fox, with his jaws well besmirched,

Thus spoke up, to his neighbour's confusion.
" Good day! my fine fellow," quoth he, etc.

Cosette

415

The two honest practitioners, annoyed by these shafts of wit,
and rather disconcerted in their dignity by the roars of laughter
that followed them, resolved to change their names, and, with
that view, applied to the king. The petition was presented to
Louis XV. on the very day on which the Pope's Nuncio and the
Cardinal de La Roche-Aymon in the presence of his Majesty,
devoutly kneeling, one on each side of Madame Du Barry, put
her slippers on her naked feet, as she was getting out of bed.
The king, who was laughing, continued his laugh; he passed
gaily from the two bishops to the two advocates, and absolved
these limbs of the law from their names almost. It was granted
to Master Corbeau, by the king's good pleasure, to add a flourish
to the first letter of his name, thus making it Gorbeau ; Master
Renard was less fortunate, as he only got permission to put a
P. before the R. which made the word Prenard,1 a name no less
appropriate than the first one.

Now, according to tradition, this Master Gorbeau was the
proprietor of the structure numbered 50-52, Boulevard de
1'Hopital. He was, likewise, the originator of the monumental
window.

Hence, this building got its name of Gorbeau House.

Opposite No. 50-52 stands, among the shade-trees that line
the Boulevard, a tall elm, three-quarters dead, and almost
directly in front, opens the Rue de la Barriere des Gobelins — a
street, at that time, without houses, unpaved, bordered with
scrubby trees, grass-grown or muddy, according to the season,
and running squarely up to the wall encircling Paris. An
odour of vitriol ascended in puffs from the roofs of a neighbouring
factory.

The Barriere was quite near. In 1823, the encircling wall
yet existed.

This Barriere itself filled the mind with gloomy images. It
was on the way to the Bicetre. It was there that, under the
Empire and the Restoration, condemned criminals re-entered
Paris on the day of their execution. It was there, that, about
the year 1829, was committed the mysterious assassination,
called " the murder of the Barriere de Fontainebleau," the
perpetrators of which the authorities have never discovered — a
sombre problem which has not yet been solved, a terrible
enigma not yet unravelled. Go a few steps further, and you
find that fatal Rue Croulebarbe where Ulbach stabbed the
goatherd girl of Ivry, in a thunderstorm, in the style cf a
1 Prenard — a grasping fellow.

4-1 6 Les Miserables

m-elodrama. Still a few steps, and you come to those detest-
able clipped elm-trees of the Barriere Saint Jacques, that ex-
pedient of philanthropists to hide the scaffold, that pitiful and
shameful Place de Greve of a cockney, shop-keeping society
which recoils from capital punishment, yet dares neither to
abolish it with lofty dignity, nor to maintain it with firm
authority.

Thirty-seven years ago, excepting this place, Saint- Jacques,
which seemed fore-doomed, and always was horrible, the
gloomiest of all this gloomy Boulevard was the spot, still so
unattractive, where stood the old building 50-52.

The city dwelling-houses did not begin to start up there until
some twenty-five years later. The place was repulsive. In
addition to the melancholy thought that seized you there, you
felt conscious of being between a La Salpctriere, the cupola of
which was in sight, and Bicetre, the barrier of which was close
by — that is to say, between the wicked folly of woman and
that of man. Far as the eye could reach, there was nothing to
be seen but the public shambles, the city wall, and here and
there the side of a factory, resembling a barrack or a monastery ;
on all sides, miserable hovels and heaps of rubbish, old walls as
black as widows' weeds, and new walls as white as winding-
sheets; on all sides, parallel rows of trees, buildings in straight
lines, low, flat structures, long, cold perspectives, and the gloomy
sameness of right angles. Not a variation of the surface of the
ground, not a caprice of architecture, not a curve. Altogether,
it was chilly, regular, and hideous. Nothing stifles one like this
perpetual symmetry. Symmetry is ennui, and ennui is the very
essence of grief and melancholy. Despair yawns. Something
more terrible than a hell of suffering may be conceived ; to wit,
a hell of ennui. Were there such a hell in existence, this section
of the Boulevard de I'Hopital might well serve as the approach
to it.

Then, at nightfall, at the moment when the day is dying out,
especially in winter, at that hour when the evening breeze tears
from the elms their faded and withered leaves, when the gloom
is deep, without a single star, or when the moon and the wind
make openings in the clouds, this boulevard became positively
terrifying. The dark outlines shrank together, and even lost
themselves in the obscurity like fragments of the infinite. The
passer-by could not keep from thinking of the innumerable
bloody traditions of the spot. The solitude of this neighbour-
hood in which so many crimes had been committed, had some-

Cosettc 417

thing fearful about it. One felt presentiments of snares in this
obscurity; all the confused outlines visible through the gloom
were eyed suspiciously, and the oblong cavities between the
trees seemed like graves. In the day-time it was ugly; in the
evening, it was dismal; at night, it was ominous of evil. In
summer, in the twilight, some old woman might be seen seated,
here and there, under the elms, on benches made mouldy by
the rain. These good old dames were addicted to begging.

In conclusion, this quarter, which was rather superannuated
than ancient, from that time began to undergo a transformation.
Thenceforth, whoever would see it, must hasten. Each day,
some of its details wholly passed away. Now, as has been the
case for twenty years past, the terminus of the Orleans railroad
lies just outside of the old suburb, and keeps it in movement.
Wherever you may locate, in the outskirts of a capital, a rail-
road depot, it is the death of a suburb and the birth of a city.
It would seem as though around these great centres of the
activity of nations, at the rumbling of these mighty _ engines,
at the snorting of these giant draught-horses of civilisation,
which devour coal and spout forth fire, the earth, teeming with
germs of life, trembles and opens to swallow old dwellings of
men and to bring forth new; old houses crumble, new houses
spring up.

Since the depot of the Orleans railway invaded the grounds
of La Salpetriere, the old narrow streets that adjoin the Fosses
Saint Victor and the Jardin des Plantes are giving way, violently
traversed, as they are, three or four times a day, by those streams
of diligences, hacks, and omnibuses, which, in course of time,
push back the houses right and left; for there are things that
sound strangely, and yet which are precisely correct; and, just
as the remark is true that, in large cities, the sun causes the
fronts of houses looking South to vegetate and grow, so is it
undeniable that the frequent passage of vehicles widens the
streets. The symptoms of a new life are evident. In that old
provincial quarter, and in its wildest corners, pavement is
beginning to appear, sidewalks are springing up and stretching
to longer and longer distances, even in those parts where there
are as yet no passers-by. One morning, a memorable morning
in July, 1845, black kettles filled with bitumen were seen
smoking there: on that day, one could exclaim that civilisation
had reached the Rue de 1'Ourcine, and that Paris had stepped
into the Faubourg Saint Marceau.

4"i8 Les Miserables

A NEST FOR OWL AND WREN

BEFORE this Gorbeau tenement Jean Valjean stopped. Like
the birds of prey, he had chosen this lonely place to make his
nest.

He fumbled in his waistcoat and took from it a sort of night-
key, opened the door, entered, then carefully closed it again and
ascended the stairway, still carrying Cosette.

At the top of the stairway he drew from his pocket another
key, with which he opened another door. The chamber which
he entered and closed again immediately was a sort of garret,
rather spacious, furnished only with a mattress spread on the
floor, a table, and a few chairs. A stove containing a fire, the
coals of which were visible, stood in one corner. The street
lamp of the boulevard shed a dim light through this poor interior.
At the further extremity there was a little room containing a
cot bed. On this Jean Valjean laid the child without waking
her.

He struck a light with flint and steel and lit a candle, which,
with his tinder-box, stood ready, beforehand, on the table;
and, as he had done on the preceding evening, he began to gaze
upon Cosette with a look of ecstasy, in which the expression of
goodness and tenderness went almost to the verge of insanity.
The little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only
to extreme strength or extreme weakness, had fallen asleep
without knowing with whom she was, and continued to slumber
without knowing where she was.

Jean Valjean bent down and kissed the child's hand.

Nine months before, he had kissed the hand of the mother,
who also had just fallen asleep. *

The same mournful, pious, agonising feeling now filled his
heart.

He knelt down by the bedside of Cosette.

It was broad daylight, and yet the child slept on. A pale
ray from the December sun struggled through the garret window
and traced upon the ceiling long streaks of light and shade.
Suddenly a carrier's waggon, heavily laden, trundled over the
cobble-stones of the boulevard, and shook the old building like
the rumbling of a tempest, jarring it from cellar to roof-tree

"Yes, madame!" cried Cosette, starting up out ol sleep,
" here I am ! here I am ! "

Cosette 419

And she threw herself from the bed, her eyelids still half
closed with the weight of slumber, stretching out her hand
towards the corner of the wall.

" Oh ! what shall I do? Where is my broom? " said she.

By this time her eyes were fully open, and she saw the smiling
face of Jean Valjean.

"Oh! yes— so it is!" said the child. "Good morning,
monsieur."

Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick famili-
arity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy.

Cosette noticed Catharine at the foot of the bed, laid hold
of her at once, and, playing the while, asked Jean Valjean a
thousand questions.— Where was she? Was Paris a big place?
Was Madame Thenardier really very far away? Wouldn't
she come back again, etc., etc. All at once she exclaimed,
" How pretty it is here ! "

It was a frightful hovel, but she felt free.

" Must I sweep? " she continued at length.

" Play ! " replied Jean Valjean.

And thus the day passed by. Cosette, without troubling
herself with trying to understand anything about it, was in-
expressibly happy with her doll and her good friend.

Ill

TWO MISFORTUNES MINGLED MAKE HAPPINESS

THE dawn of the next day found Jean Valjean again near the
bed of Cosette. He waited there, motionless, to see her wake.

Something new was entering his soul.

Jean Valjean had never loved anything. For twenty-five
years he had been alone in the world. He had never been a
father, lover, husband, or friend. At the galleys, he was cross,
sullen, abstinent, ignorant, and intractable. The heart of the
old convict was full of freshness. His sister and her children
had left in his memory only a vague and distant impression,
which had finally almost entirely vanished. He had made every
exertion to find them again, and, not succeeding, had forgotte
them. Human nature is thus constituted. The other tender
emotions of his youth, if any such he had, were lost in an abyss.

When he saw Cosette, when he had taken her, carried her
away, and rescued her, he felt his heart moved. All that he
had of feeling and affection was aroused and vehemently

420 Les Miserable

attracted towards this child. He would approach the bed
where she slept, and would tremble there with delight; he felt
inward yearnings, like a mother, and knew not what they were ;
for it is something very incomprehensible and very sweet, this
grand and strange emotion of a heart in its first love.

Poor old heart, so young !

But, as he was fifty-five, and Cosette was but eight years old,
all that he might have felt of love in his entire life melted into
a sort of ineffable radiance.

This was the second white vision he had seen. The bishop
bad caused the dawn of virtue on his horizon, Cosette evoked
the dawn of love.

The first few days rolled by amid this bewilderment.

On her part, Cosette, too, unconsciously underwent a change,
poor little creature! She was so small when her mother left
her, that she could not recollect her now. As all children do,
like the young shoots of the vine that cling to everything, she
had tried to love. She had not been able to succeed. Every-
body had repelled her — the Thenardiers, their children, other
children. She had loved the dog; it died, and after that no
person and no thing would have aught to do with her. Mourn-
ful thing to tell, and one which we have already hinted, at the
age of eight her heart was cold. This was not her fault; it
was not the faculty of love that she lacked; alas! it was the
possibility. And so, from the very first day, all that thought
and felt in her began to love this kind old friend. She now
felt sensations utterly unknown to her before — a sensation of
budding and of growth.

Her kind friend no longer impressed as old and poor. In her
eyes Jean Valjean was handsome, just as the garret had seemed
pretty.

Such are the effects of the aurora-glow of childhood, youth,
and joy. The newness of earth and of life has something to
do with it. Nothing is so charming as the ruddy tints that
happiness can shed around a garret room. We all, in the course
of our lives, have had our rose-coloured sky-parlour.

Nature had placed a wide chasm — fifty years' interval of age
— between Jean Valjean and Cosette. This chasm fate filled
up. Fate abruptly brought together, and wedded with its
resistless power, these two shattered lives, dissimilar in years,
but similar in sorrow. The one, indeed, was the complement
of the other. The instinct of Cosette sought for a father, as
the instinct of Jean Valjean sought for a child. To meet, was

Cosettc 421

to find one another. In that mysterious moment, when their
hands touched, they were welded together. When their two
souls saw each other, they recognised that they were mutually
needed, and they closely embraced.

Taking the words in their most comprehensive and most
absolute sense, it might be said that, separated from everything
by the walls of the tomb, Jean Valjean was the husband
bereaved, as Cosette was the orphan. This position made
Jean Valjean become, in a celestial sense, the father of Cosette.

And, in truth, the mysterious impression produced upon
Cosette, in the depths of the woods at Chelles, by the hand of
Jean Valjean grasping her own in the darkness, was not an
illusion but a reality. The coming of this man and his partici-
pation in the destiny of this child had been the advent of God.

In the meanwhile, Jean Valjean had well chosen his hiding-
place. He was there in a state of security that seemed to be
complete.

The apartment with the side chamber which he occupied
with Cosette, was the one whose window looked out upon the
boulevard. This window being the only one in the house,
there was no neighbour's prying eye to fear either from that
side or opposite.

The lower floor of No. 50-52 was a sort of dilapidated shed;
it served as a sort of stable for market gardeners, and had no
communication with the upper floor. It was separated from
it by the flooring, which had neither stairway nor trap-door,
and was, as it were, the diaphragm of the old building. The
upper floor contained, as we have said, several rooms and a few
lofts, only one of which was occupied — by an old woman, who
was maid of all work to Jean Valjean. All the rest was un-
inhabited.

It was this old woman, honoured with the title of landlady,
but, in reality, intrusted with the functions of portress, who had
rented him these lodgings on Christmas Day. He had passed
himself off to her as a gentleman of means, ruined by the
Spanish Bonds, who was going to live there _with his grand-
daughter. He had paid her for six months in advance, and
engaged the old dame to furnish the chamber and the little
bedroom, as we have described them. This old woman it was
who had kindled the fire in the stove and made everything
ready for them, on the evening of their arrival.

Weeks rolled by. These two beings led in that wretched
shelter a happy life.

422 Les Miserabics

From the earliest dawn, Cosette laughed, prattled, and sang.
Children have their morning song, like birds.

Sometimes it happened that Jean Valjean would take her
little red hand, all chapped and frost-bitten as it was, and kiss
it. The poor child, accustomed only to blows, had no idea
what this meant, and would draw back ashamed.

At times, she grew serious and looked musingly at her little
black dress. Cosette was no longer in rags ; she was in mourning.
She was issuing from utter poverty and was entering upon life.

Jean Valjean had begun to teach her to read. Sometimes,
while teaching the child to spell, he would remember that it
was with the intention of accomplishing evil that he had learned
to read, in the galleys. This intention had now been changed
into teaching a child to read. Then the old convict would
smile with the pensive smile of angels.

He felt in this a pre-ordination from on high, a volition of
some one more than man, and he would lose himself in reverie.
Good thoughts as well as bad have their abysses.

To teach Cosette to read, and to watch her playing, was nearly
all Jean Valjean's life. And then, he would talk to her about
her mother, and teach her to pray.

She called him Father, and knew him by no other name.

He spent hours seeing her dress and undress her doll, and
listening to her song and prattle. From that time on, life
seemed full of interest to him, men seemed good and just; he
no longer, in his thoughts, reproached any one with any wrong;
he saw no reason, now, why he should not live to grow very old,
since his child loved him. He looked forward to a long future
illuminated by Cosette with charming light. The very best
of us are not altogether exempt from some tinge of egotism.
At times, he thought with a sort of quiet satisfaction, that she
would be by no means handsome.

This is but a personal opinion; but in order to express our
idea thoroughly, at the point Jean Valjean had reached, when
he began to love Cosette, it is not clear to us that he did not
require this fresh supply of goodness to enable him to persevere
in the right path. He had seen the wickedness of men and the
misery of society under new aspects — aspects incomplete and,
unfortunately, showing forth only one side of the truth — the
lot of woman summed up in Fantine, public authority personi-
fied in Javert; he had been sent back to the galleys this time
for doing good; new waves of bitterness had overwhelmed him;
disgust and weariness had once more resumed their sway; the

Cosette 423

recollection of the bishop, even, was perhaps almost eclipsed,
sure to reappear afterwards, luminous and triumphant; yet,
in fact, this blessed remembrance was growing feebler. Who
knows that Jean Valjean was not on the point of becoming
discouraged and falling back to evil ways? Love came, and he
again grew strong. Alas! he was no less feeble than Cosette.
He protected her, and she gave strength to him. Thanks to
him, she could walk upright in life; thanks to her, he could
persist in virtuous deeds. He was the support of this child,
and this child was his prop and staff. Oh, divine and un-
fathomable mystery of the compensations of Destiny !

WHAT THE LANDLADY DISCOVERED

JEAN VALJEAN was prudent enough never to go out in the day-
time. Every evening, however, about twilight, he would walk
for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with Cosette, select-
ing the most unfrequented side alleys of the boulevards and
going into the churches at nightfall. He was fond of going to
St. Medard, which is the nearest church. When he did not
take Cosette, she remained with the old woman; but it was the
child's delight to go out with her kind old friend. She preferred
an hour with him even to her delicious tete-a-tetes with Catharine.
He would walk along holding her by the hand, and telling her
pleasant things.

It turned out that Cosette was very playful.

The old woman was housekeeper and cook, and did the
marketing.

They lived frugally, always with a little fire in the stove, but
like people in embarrassed circumstances. Jean Valjean made
•no change in the furniture described on the first day, excepting
that he caused a solid door to be put up in place of the glass
•door of Cosette's little bed-chamber.

He still wore his yellow coat, his black pantaloons, and his
old hat. On the street he was taken for a beggar. It some-
times happened that kind-hearted dames, in passing, would
turn and hand him a penny. Jean Valjean accepted the penny
and bowed 'humbly. It chanced, sometimes, also, that he
-would meet some 'wretched creature begging alms, and then,
(glancing about him to be sure that no one was looking, he would
-stealthily 'approach 'the beggar, slip a piece of money, often

424 Les Miserables

silver, into his hand, and walk rapidly away. This had its
inconveniences. He began to be known in the quarter as the
beggar who gives alms.

The old landlady, a crabbed creature, fully possessed with
that keen observation as to all that concerned her neighbours,
which is peculiar to the suburbs, watched Jean Valjean closely
without exciting his suspicion. She was a little deaf, which
made her talkative. She had but two teeth left, one in the
upper and one in the lower jaw, and these she was continually
rattling together. She had questioned Cosette, who, knowing
nothing, could tell nothing, further than that she came from
Montfermeil. One morning this old female spy saw Jean
Valjean go, with an appearance which seemed peculiar to the
old busybody, into one of the uninhabited apartments of the
building. She followed him with the steps of an old cat, and
could see him without herself being seen, through the chink of
the door directly opposite. Jean Valjean had, doubtless for
greater caution, turned bis back towards the door in question.
The old woman saw him fumble in his pocket, and take from it
a needle case, scissors, and thread, and then proceed to rip open
the lining of one lappel of his coat and take from under it a piece
of yellowish paper, which he unfolded. The beldame remarked
with dismay, that it was a bank bill for a thousand francs. It
was the second or third one only that she had ever seen. She
ran away very much frightened.

A moment afterwards, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked
her to get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding that
it was the half-yearly interest on his property which he had
received on the previous day. "Where?" thought the old
woman. He did not go out until six o'clock, and the govern-
ment treasury is certainly not open at that hour. The old
woman got the note changed, all the while forming her con-
jectures. This bill of a thousand francs, commented upon and
multiplied, gave rise to a host of breathless conferences among
the gossips of the Rue des Vignes Saint Marcel.

Some days afterwards, it chanced that Jean Valjean, in his
shirt-sleeves, was sawing wood in the entry. The old woman
was in his room doing the chamberwork. She was alone.
Cosette was intent upon the wood he was sawing. The old
woman saw the coat hanging on a nail, and examined it. The
lining had been sewed over. She felt it carefully and thought
she could detect in the lappels and in the padding, thicknesses
of paper. Other thousand-franc bills beyond a doubt !

Cosette 425

She noticed, besides, that there were all sorts of things in the
pockets. Not only were there the needles, scissors, and thread,
which she had already seen, but a large pocket-book, a very big
knife, and, worst symptom of all, several wigs of different
colours. Every pocket of this coat had the appearance of
containing something to be provided with against sudden
emergencies.

Thus, the occupants of the old building reached the closing
days of winter.

A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLING ON THE FLOOR MAKES A
NOISE

THERE was, in the neighbourhood of Saint Medard, a mendicant
who sat crouching over the edge of a condemned public well
near by, and to whom Jean Valjean often gave alms. He never
passed this man without giving him a few pennies. Sometimes
he spoke to him. Those who were envious of this poor creature
said he was in the pay of the police. He was an old church
beadle of seventy-five, who was always mumbling prayers.

One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing that way, un-
accompanied by Cosette, he noticed the beggar sitting in his
usual place, under the street lamp which had just been lighted.
The man, according to custom, seemed to be praying and was
bent over. Jean Valjean walked up to him, and put a piece
of money in his hand, as usual. The beggar suddenly raised
his eyes, gazed intently at Jean Valjean, and then quickly
dropped his head. This movement was like a flash ; Jean Val-
jean shuddered; it seemed to him that he had just seen, by the
light of the street-lamp, not the calm, sanctimonious face of the
aged beadle, but a terrible and well-known countenance. He
experienced the sensation one would feel on finding himself
suddenly face to face, in the gloom, with a tiger. He recoiled,
horror-stricken and petrified, daring neither to breathe nor to
speak, to stay nor to fly, but gazing upon the beggar who had
once more bent down his head, with its tattered covering, and
seemed to be no longer conscious of his presence. At this
singular moment, an instinct, perhaps the mysterious instinct
of self-preservation, prevented Jean Valjean from uttering a
word. The beggar had the same form, the same rags, the same
general appearance as on every other day. "Pshaw!" said

426 Les Miserables

Jean Valjean to himself, "I am mad! I am dreaming! It
cannot be ! " And he went home, anxious and ill at ease.

He scarcely dared to admit, even to himself, that the coun-
tenance he thought he had seen was the face of Javert.

That night, upon reflection, he regretted that he had not
questioned the man so as to compel him to raise his head a
second time. On the morrow, at nightfall, he went thither,
again. The beggar was in his place. " Good day ! Good day ! "
said Jean Valjean, with firmness, as he gave him the accustomed
alms. The beggar raised his head and answered in a whining
voice: " Thanks, kind sir, thanks! " It was, indeed, only the
old beadle.

Jean Valjean now felt fully reassured. He even began to
laugh. " What the deuce was I about to fancy that I saw
Javert," thought he; "is my sight growing poor already?"
And he thought no more about it.

Some days after, it might be eight o'clock in the evening, he
was in his room, giving Cosette her spelling lesson, which the
child was repeating in a loud voice, when he heard the door of
the building open and close again. That seemed odd to him.
The old woman, the only occupant of the house besides himself
and Cosette, always went to bed at dark to save candles. Jean
Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be silent. He heard some one
coming up stairs. Possibly, it might be the old woman who had
felt unwell and had been to the druggist's. Jean Valjean
listened. The footstep was heavy, and sounded like a man's;
but the old woman wore heavy shoes, and there is nothing so
much like the step of a man as the step of an old woman. How-
ever, Jean Valjean blew out his candle.

He sent Cosette to bed, telling her in a suppressed voice to lie
down very quietly — and, as he kissed her forehead, the footsteps
stopped. Jean Valjean remained silent and motionless, his
back turned towards the door, still seated on his chair from
which he had not moved, and holding his breath in the darkness.
After a considerable interval, not hearing anything more, he
turned round without making any noise, and as he raised his eyes
towards the door of his room, he saw a light through the keyhole.
This ray of light was an evil star in the black background of the
door and the wall. There was, evidently, somebody outside
with a candle who was listening.

A few minutes elapsed, and the light disappeared. But he
heard no sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that who-
ever was listening at the door had taken off his shoes.

Cosette 427

Jean Valjean threw himself on his bed without undressing,
but could not shut his eyes that night.

At daybreak, as he was sinking into slumber from fatigue, he
was aroused, again, by the creaking of the door of some room
at the end of the hall, and then he heard the same footstep which
had ascended the stairs, on the preceding night. The step
approached. He started from his bed and placed his eye to the
keyhole, which was quite a large one, hoping to get a glimpse
of the person, whoever it might be, who had made his way into
the building in the night-time and had listened at his door. It
was a man, indeed, who passed by Jean Valjean's room, this
time without stopping. The hall was still too dark for him to
make out his features; but, when the man reached the stairs, a
ray of light from without made his figure stand out like a profile,
and Jean Valjean had a full view of his back. The man was tall,
wore a long frock-coat, and had a cudgel under his arm. It was
the redoubtable form of Javert.

Jean Valjean might have tried to get another look at him
through his window that opened on the boulevard, but he
would have had to raise the sash, and that he dared not do.

It was evident that the man had entered by means of a key,
as if at home. " Who, then, had given him the key ? — and
what was the meaning of this ? "

At seven in the morning, when the old lady came to clear up
the rooms, Jean Valjean eyed her sharply, but asked her no
questions. The good dame appeared as usual.

While she was doing her sweeping, she said: —

" Perhaps monsieur heard some one come in, last night? "

At her age and on that boulevard, eight in the evening is the
very darkest of the night.

"Ah! yes, by the way, I did," he answered in the most
natural tone. "Who was it?"

" It's a new lodger," said the old woman, " who has come into
the house."

" And his name is ? "

"Well, I hardly recollect now. Dumont or Daumont.—
Some such name as that."

" And what is he — this M. Daumont? "

The old woman studied him, a moment, through her little
foxy eyes, and answered :

" He's a gentleman living on his income like you."

She may have intended nothing by this, but Jean Valjean
thought he could make out that she did.

428

Les Miserables

When the old woman was gone, he made a roll of a hundred
francs he had in a drawer and put it into his pocket. Do what
he would to manage this so that the clinking of the silver should
not be heard, a five-franc piece escaped his grasp and rolled
jingling away over the floor.

At dusk, he went to the street-door and looked carefully up
and down the boulevard. No one was to be seen. The boule-
vard seemed to be utterly deserted. It is true that there might
have been some one hidden behind a tree.

He went upstairs again.

" Come," said he to Cosette.

He took her by the hand and they both went out.

BOOK FIFTH
A DARK CHASE NEEDS A SILENT HOUND

THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY

IN order to understand the pages immediately following, and
others also which will be found further on, an observation is here
necessary.

Many years have already passed away since the author of this
book, who is compelled, reluctantly, to speak of himself, was in
Paris. Since then, Paris has been transformed. A new city
has arisen, which to him is in some sense unknown. He need
not say that he loves Paris; Paris is the native city of his heart.
Through demolition and reconstruction, the Paris of his youth,
that Paris which he religiously treasures in his memory, has
become a Paris of former times. Let him be permitted to
speak of that Paris as if it still existed. It is possible that
where the author is about to conduct his readers, saying: " In
such a street there is such a house," there is now no longer either
house or street. The reader will verify it, if he chooses to take
the trouble. As to himself, the author knows not the new Paris,
and writes with the old Paris before his eyes in an illusion which
is precious to him. It is a sweet thing for him to imagine that
there still remains something of what he saw when he was in
his own country, and that all is not vanished. While we are
living in our native land, we fancy that these streets are in-
different to us, that these windows, these roofs, and these doors
are nothing to us, that these walls are strangers to us, that these
trees are no more than other trees, that these houses which we
never enter are useless to us, that this pavement on which we
walk is nothing but stone. In after times, when we are there
no longer, we find that those streets are very dear, that we miss ,
those roofs, those windows, and those doors, that those walls
are necessary to us, that those trees are our well-beloved, that
those houses which we never entered we entered every day, and
that we have left something of our affections, our life, and our

429

430 Les Miserables

heart in those streets. All those places which we see no more,
which perhaps we shall never see again, but the image of which
we have preserved, assume a mournful charm, return to us with
the sadness of a spectre, make the holy land visible to us, and
are, so to speak, the very form of France; and we love them and
call them up such as they are, such as they were, and hold to
them, unwilling to change anything, for one clings to the form
of his fatherland as to the face of his mother.

Permit us, then, to speak of the past in the present. Saying
which, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we proceed.

Jean Valjean had immediately left the boulevard and began
to thread the streets, making as many turns as he could, return-
ing sometimes upon his track to make sure that he was not
followed.

This manoeuvre is peculiar to the hunted stag. On ground
where the foot leaves a mark, it has, among other advantages,
that of deceiving the hunters and the dogs by the counter-step.
It is what is called in venery false reimbushment.

The moon was full. Jean Valjean was not sorry for that.
The moon, still near the horizon, cut large prisms of light and
shade in the streets. Jean Valjean could glide along the houses
and the walls on the dark side and observe the light side. He
did not, perhaps, sufficiently realise that the obscure side escaped
him. However, in all the deserted little streets in the neigh-
bourhood of the Rue de Poliveau, he felt sure that no one was
behind him.

Cosette walked without asking any questions. The sufferings
of the first six years of her life had introduced something of
the passive into her nature. Besides — and this is a remark to
which we shall have more than one occasion to return — she had
become familiar, without being fully conscious of them, with
the peculiarities of her good friend and the eccentricities of
destiny. And then, she felt safe, being with him.

Jean Valjean knew, no more than Cosette, where he was going.
He trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed to him
that he also held some one greater than himself by the hand;
he believed he felt a being leading him, invisible. Finally, he
had no definite idea, no plan, no project. He was not even
absolutely sure that this was Javert, and then it might be Javert,
and Javert not know that he was Jean Valjean. Was he not
disguised? was he not supposed to be dead? Nevertheless,
singular things had happened within the last few days. He
wanted no more of them. He was determined not to enter

Cosettc 431

Gorbeau House again. Like the animal hunted from his den,
he was looking for a hole to hide in until he could find one to
remain in.

Jean Valjean described many and varied labyrinths in the
Quartier Mouffetard, which was asleep already as if it were still
under the discipline of the middle age and the yoke of the
curfew; he produced different combinations, in wise strategy ,
with the Rue Censier and the Rue Copeau, the Rue du Battoir
Saint Victor and the Rue du Puits 1'Ermite. There are lodgings
in that region, but he did not even enter them, not finding what
suited him. He had no doubt whatever that if, perchance, they
had sought his track, they had lost it.

As eleven o'clock struck in the tower of Saint Etienne du
Mont, he crossed the Rue de Pontoise in front of the bureau of
the Commissary of Police, which is at No. 14. Some moments
afterwards, the instinct of which we have already spoken made
him turn his head. At this moment he saw distinctly — thanks
to the commissary's lamp which revealed them — three men
following him quite near, pass one after another under this lamp
on the dark side of the street. One of these men entered the
passage leading to the commissary's house. The one in advance
appeared to him decidedly suspicious.

" Come, child ! " said he to Cosette, and he made haste to get
out of the Rue de Pontoise.

He made a circuit, went round the arcade des Patriarches,
which was closed on account of the lateness of the hour, walked
rapidly through the Rue de l'Epee-de-Bois and the Rue de
1'Arbalete, and plunged into the Rue des Postes.

There was a square there, where the College Rollin now is,
and from which branches off the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevteve.

(We need not say that the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve is an
old street, and that there a postchaise did not pass once in ten
years through the Rue des Postes. This Rue des Postes was
in the thirteenth century inhabited by potters, and its true
name is Rue des Pots.)

The moon lighted up this square brightly. Jean Valjea
concealed himself in a doorway, calculating that if these men
were still following him, he could not fail to get a good view of
them when they crossed this lighted space.

In fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men appeared.

There were now four of them ; all were tall, dressed in long brown

-oats, with round hats, and great clubs in their hands. They

•ere not less fearfully forbidding by their size and their large

43 2 Les Miserables

fists than by their stealthy tread in the darkness. One would
have taken them for four spectres in citizen's dress.

They stopped in the centre of the square and formed a group
like people consulting. They appeared undecided. The man
who seemed to be the leader turned and energetically pointed
in the direction in which Jean Valjean was; one of the others
seemed to insist with some obstinacy on the contrary direction.
At the instant when the leader turned, the moon shone full in
his face. Jean Valjean recognised Javert perfectly.

IT IS FORTUNATE THAT VEHICLES CAN CROSS THE
BRIDGE OF AUSTERLITZ

UNCERTAINTY was at an end for Jean Valjean; happily, it still
continued with these men. He took advantage of their hesita-
tion; it was time lost for them, gained for him. He came out
from the doorway in which he was concealed, and made his way
into the Rue des Postes towards the region of the Jardin des
Plantes. Cosette began to be tired; he took her in his arms,
and carried her. There was nobody in the streets, and the
lamps had not been lighted on account of the moon.

He doubled his pace.

In a few steps, he reached the Goblet pottery, on the facade
of which the old inscription stood out distinctly legible in the
light of the moon:

De Goblet fils c'est ici la fabrique ;
Venez choisir des cruches et des brocs,
Des pots £ fleurs, des tugaux, de la brique.
A tout venant le Coeur vend des Carreaux.

He passed through the Rue de la Clef, then by the Fontaine
de Saint Victor along the Jardin des Plantes by the lower streets,
and reached the quay. There he looked around. The quay
was deserted. The streets were deserted. Nobody behind him.
He took breath.

He arrived at the bridge of Austerlitz.

It was still a toll-bridge at this period.

He presented himself at the toll-house and gave a sous.

" It is two sous," said the toll-keeper. " You are carrying a
child who can walk. Pay for two."

He paid, annoyed that his passage should have attract*-
observation. All flight should be a gliding.

Cosette 433

A large cart was passing the Seine at the same time, and like
him was going towards the right bank. This could be made of
use. He could go the whole length of the bridge in the shade of
this cart.

Towards the middle of the bridge, Cosette, her feet becoming
numb, desired to walk. He put her down and took her by the
hand.

The bridge passed, he perceived some wood-yards a little to
the right and walked in that direction. To get there, he must
venture into a large clear open space. He did not hesitate.
Those who followed him were evidently thrown off his track,
and Jean Valjean believed himself out of danger. Sought for,
he might be, but followed he was not.

A little street, the Rue du Chemin Vert Saint Antoine, opened
between two wood-yards inclosed by walls. This street was
narrow, obscure, and seemed made expressly for him. Before
entering it, he looked back.

From the point where he was, he could see the whole length
of the bridge of Austerlitz.

Four shadows, at that moment, entered upon the bridge.

These shadows were coming from the Jardin des Plantes
towards the right bank.

These four shadows were the four men.

Jean Valjean felt a shudder like that of the deer when he sees
the hounds again upon his track.

One hope was left him; it was that these men had not entered
upon the bridge, and had not perceived him when he crossed
the large square clear space leading Cosette by the hand.

In that case, by plunging into the little street before him, if he
could succeed in reaching the wood-yards, the marshes, the
fields, the open grounds, he could escape.

It seemed to him that he might trust himself to this silent
little street. He entered it.

Ill
SEE THE PLAN OF PARIS OF 172?

SOME three hundred paces on, he reached a point where the
street forked. It divided into two streets, the one turning off
obliquely to the left, the other to the right. Jean Valjean had
before him the two branches of a Y. Which should he choose?
He did not hesitate, but took the right.

434 kes Miserables

Why?

Because the left branch led towards the faubourg — that is to
say, towards the inhabited region, and the right branch towards
the country — that is, towards the uninhabited region.

But now, they no longer walked very fast. Cosette's step
slackened Jean Valj can's pace.

He took her up and carried her again. Cosette rested her
head upon the goodman's shoulder, and did not say a word.

He turned, from time to time, and looked back. He took
care to keep always on the dark side of the street. The street
was straight behind him. The two or three first times he
turned, he saw nothing; the silence was complete, and he kept
on his way somewhat reassured. Suddenly, on turning again,
he thought he saw in the portion of the street through which he
had just passed, far in the obscurity, something which stirred.

He plunged forward rather than walked, hoping to find some
side street by which to escape, and once more to elude his
pursuers.

He came to a wall.

This wall, however, did not prevent him from going further;
it was a wall forming the side of a cross alley, in which the street
Jean Valjean was then in came to an end.

Here again he must decide; should he take the right or the
left?

He looked to the right. The alley ran out to a space be-
tween some buildings that were mere sheds or barns, then
terminated abruptly. The end of this blind alley was plain to be
seen — a great white wall.

He looked to the left. The alley on this side was open, and,
about two hundred paces further on, ran into a street of which
it was an affluent. In this direction lay safety.

The instant Jean Valjean decided to turn to the left, to try
to reach the street which he saw at the end of the alley, he per-
ceived, at the corner of the alley and the street towards which
he was just about going, a sort of black, motionless statue.

It was a man, who had just been posted there, evidently, and
who was waiting for him, guarding the passage.

Jean Valjean was startled.

This part of Paris where Jean Valjean was, situated between
the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the La Rapee, is one of those
which have been entirely transformed by the recent works — a
change for the worse, in the opinion of some, a transfiguration,
according to others. The vegetable gardens, the wood-yards,

Cosette 435

and the old buildings are gone. There are now broad new
streets, amphitheatres, circuses, hippodromes, railroad depots,
a prison, Mazas; progress, as we see, with its corrective.

Half a century ago, in the common popular language, full of
tradition, which obstinately calls 1'Institut Les Quatre Nations,
and 1'Opera Comique Feydeau, the precise spot which Jean
Valjean had reached was called the Petit Pic-pus. The Porte
Saint Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere des Sergents, the
Porcherons, the Galiote, the Celestins, the Capuchins, the Mail,
the Bourbe, the Arbre de Cracovie, the Petite Pologne, the
Petit Picpus, these are names of the old Paris floating over into
the new. The memory of the people buoys over these waifs of
the past.

The Petit Picpus, which in fact hardly had a real existence,
and was never more than a mere outline of a quarter, had almost
the monkish aspect of a Spanish city. The roads were poorly
paved, the streets were thinly built up. Beyond the two or
three streets of which we are about to speak, there was nothing
there but wall and solitude. Not a shop, not a vehicle, hardly
a light here and there in the windows; all the lights put out
after ten o'clock. Gardens, convents, wood-yards, market
gardens, a few scattered low houses, and great walls as high
as the houses.

Such was the quarter in the last century. The Revolution
had already very much altered it. The republican authorities
had pulled down buildings and run streets into and through it.
Depositories of rubbish had been established there. Thirty
years ago, this quarter was being gradually erased by the con-
struction of new buildings. It is now completely blotted out.
The Petit Picpus, of which no present plan retains a trace, is
clearly enough indicated in the plan of 1727, published at Paris
by Denis Thierry, Rue Saint Jacques, opposite the Rue du Platre,
and at Lyons by Jean Girin, Rue Merciere, a la Prudence. The
Petit Picpus had what we have just called a Y of streets, formed
by the Rue du Chemin Vert Saint Antoine dividing into two
branches and taking on the left the name Petite Rue Picpus
and on the right the name of the Rue Polonceau. The two
branches of the Y were joined at the top as by a bar. This
bar was called the Rue Droit Mur. The Rue Polonceau ended
there; the Petite Rue Picpus passed beyond, rising towards the
March6 Lenoir. He who, coming from the Seine, reached the
extremity of the Rue Polonceau, had on his left the Rue Droit
Mur turning sharply at a right angle, before him the side wall of

436

Les Miserables

that street, and on his right a truncated prolongation of the Rue
Droit Mur, without thoroughfare, called the Cul-de-sac Genrot.

Jean Valjean was in this place.

As we have said, on perceiving the black form standing sentry
at the corner of the Rue Droit Mur and the Petite Rue Picpus,
he was startled. There was no doubt. He was watched by
this shadow.

What should he do?

There was now no time to turn back. What he had seen
moving in the obscurity some distance behind him, the moment
before, was undoubtedly Javert and his squad. Javert probably
had already reached the commencement of the street of which
Jean Valjean was at the end. Javert, to all appearance, was
acquainted with this little trap, and had taken his precautions
by sending one of his men to guard the exit. These conjectures,
so like certainties, whirled about wildly in Jean Valj can's
troubled brain, as a handful of dust flies before a sudden blast.
He scrutinised the Cul-de-sac Genrot; there were high walls.
He scrutinised the Petite Rue Picpus; there was a sentinel.
He saw that dark form repeated in black upon the white pave-
ment flooded with the moonlight. To advance, was to fall upon
that man. To go back, was to throw himself into Javert's
hands. Jean Valjean felt as if caught by a chain that was
slowly winding up. He looked up into the sky in despair.

GROPING FOR ESCAPE

IN order to understand what follows, it is necessary to form an
exact idea of the little Rue Droit Mur, and particularly the
corner which it makes at the left as you leave the Rue Polonceau
to enter this alley. The little Rue Droit Mur was almost
entirely lined on the right, as far as the Petite Rue Picpus, by
houses of poor appearance; on the left by a single building of
severe outline, composed of several structures which rose gradu-
ally a story or two, one above another, as they approached the
Petite Rue Picpus, so that the building, very high on the side of
the Petite Rue Picpus, was quite low on the side of the Rue
Polonceau. There, at the corner of which he have spoken, it
became so low as to be nothing more than a wall. This wall
did not abut squarely on the corner, which was cut off diagonally,
leaving a considerable space that was shielded by the two angles

Cosette 437

thus formed from observers at a distance in either the Rue
Polonceau, or the Rue Droit Mur. '

From these two angles of the truncated corner, the wall
extended along the Rue Polonceau as far as a house numbered
49, and along the Rue Droit Mur, where its height was much less,
to the sombre-looking building of which we have spoken, cutting
its gable, and thus making a new re-entering angle in the street.
This gable had a gloomy aspect; there was but one window to
be seen, or rather two shutters covered with a sheet of zinc, and
always closed.

The situation of the places which we describe here is rigorously
exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise remembrance in
the minds of the old inhabitants of the locality.

This truncated corner was entirely filled by a thing which
seemed like a colossal and miserable door. It was a vast shape-
less assemblage of perpendicular planks, broader above than
below, bound together by long transverse iron bands. At the
side there was a porte-cochere of the ordinary dimensions, which
had evidently been cut in within the last fifty years.

A lime-tree lifted its branches above this corner, and the wall
was covered with ivy towards the Rue Polonceau.

In the imminent peril of Jean Valjean, this sombre building
had a solitary and uninhabited appearance which attracted him.
He glanced over it rapidly. He thought if he could only suc-
ceed in getting into it, he would perhaps be safe. Hope came
to him with the idea. .

Midway of the front of this building on the Rue Droit Mur,
there were at all the windows of the different stories old leaden
waste-pipes. The varied branchings of the tubing which was
continued from a central conduit to each of these waste-pipes
outlined on the facade a sort of tree. These ramifications of
the pipes with their hundred elbows seemed like those old closely-
pruned grape-vines which twist about over the front of ancient
farm-houses.

This grotesque espalier, with its sheet-iron branches, was the
first object which Jean Valjean saw. He seated Cosette with
her back against a post, and, telling her to be quiet, ran to the
spot where the conduit came to the pavement. Perhaps then
was some means of scaling the wall by that and entering the
house. But the conduit was dilapidated and out of use, and
scarcely held by its fastening. Besides, all the windows of t
silent house were protected by thick bars of iron, even the
dormer windows. And then the moon shone full upon this

438

Les Miserablcs

fa9ade, and the man who was watching from the end of the
street would have seen Jean Valjean making the escalade.
And then what should he do with Cosette ? How could he raise
her to the top of a three-story house ?

He gave up climbing by the conduit, and crept along the wall
to the Rue Polonceau.

When he reached this flattened corner where he had left
Cosette, he noticed that there no one could see him. He
escaped, as we have just explained, all observation from every
side. Besides, he was in the shade. Then there were two
doors. Perhaps they might be forced. The wall, above which
he saw the lime and the ivy, evidently surrounded a garden,
where he could at least conceal himself, although there were no
leaves on the trees yet, and pass the rest of the night.

Time was passing. He must act quickly.

He tried the carriage door, and found at once that it was
fastened within and without.

He approached the other large door with more hope. It was
frightfully decrepit, its immense size even rendering it less solid;
the planks were rotten, the iron fastenings, of which there were
three, were rusted. It seemed possible to pierce this worm-
eaten structure.

On examining it, he saw that this door was not a door. It
had neither hinges, braces, lock, nor crack in the middle. The
iron bands crossed from one side to the other without a break.
Through the crevices of the planks he saw the rubble-work and
stones, roughly cemented, which passers-by could have seen
within the last ten years. He was compelled to admit with
consternation that this appearance of a door was simply an
ornamentation in wood of a wall, upon which it was placed.
It was easy to tear off a board, but then he would find himself
face to face with a wall.

WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WERE THE STREETS
LIGHTED WITH GAS

Ax this moment a muffled and regular sound began to make
itself heard at some distance. Jean Valjean ventured to thrust
his head a little way around the corner of the street. Seven or
eight soldiers, formed in platoon, had just turned into the Rue
Polonceau. He saw the gleam of their bayonets. They were
coming towards him.

Cosettc 439

These soldiers, at whose head he distinguished the tall form
of Javert, advanced slowly and with precaution. They stopped
frequently. It was plain they were exploring all the recesses
of the walls and all the entrances of doors and alleys. _

It was — and here conjecture could not be deceived—some
patrol which Javert had met and which he had put in requisition.
Javert's two assistants marched in the ranks.
At the rate at which they were marching, and with the stops
they were making, it would take them about a quarter of an
hour to arrive at the spot where Jean Valjean was. It was a
frightful moment. A few minutes separated Jean Valjean from
that awful precipice which was opening before him for the third
time. And the galleys now were no longer simply the galleys,
they were Cosette lost for ever; that is to say, a life in death.
There was now only one thing possible.
Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he might be said 1
carry two knapsacks ; in one he had the thoughts of a saint, in
the other the formidable talents of a convict. He helped him-
self from one or the other as occasion required.

Among other resources, thanks to his numerous escapes from
the galleys at Toulon, he had, it will be remembered, become
master of that incredible art of raising himself, in the right
angle of a wall, if need be to the height of a sixth story; an art
without ladders or props, by mere muscular strength, support-
ing himself by the back of his neck, his shoulders, his hips, and
his knees, hardly making use of the few projections of the stone,
which rendered so terrible and so celebrated the corner of the
yard of the Conciergerie of Paris by which, some twenty years
ago, the convict Battemolle made his escape.

lean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which
he saw the lime tree. It was about eighteen feet high,
angle that it made with the gable of the great building was
filled in its lower part with a pile of masonry of triangular shape,
probably intended to preserve this too convenient recess from
a too public use. This preventive filling-up of the corners of a
wall is very common in Paris.

This pile was about five feet high. From its top the space to

climb to get upon the wall was hardly more than fourteen feet.

The wall was capped by a flat stone without any projection.

The difficulty was Cosette. Cosette did not know how to

scale a wall. Abandon her? Jean Valjean did not think of it.

To carry her was impossible. The whole strength of a man

is necessary to accomplish these strange ascents.

44° Les Miserables

burden would make him lose his centre of gravity and he would
fall.

He needed a cord. Jean Valjean had none. Where could he
find a cord, at midnight, in the Rue Polonceau ? Truly at that
instant, if Jean Valjean had had a kingdom, he would have given
it for a rope.

All extreme situations have their flashes which sometimes
make us blind, sometimes illuminate us.

The despairing gaze of Jean Valjean encountered the lamp-
post in the Cul-de-sac Genrot.

At this epoch there were no gas-lights in the streets of Paris.
At nightfall they lighted the street lamps, which were placed at
intervals, and were raised and lowered by means of a rope
traversing the street from end to end, running through the
grooves of posts. The reel on which this rope was wound was
inclosed below the lantern in a little iron box, the key of which
was kept by the lamp-lighter, and the rope itself was protected
by a casing of metal.

Jean Valjean, with the energy of a final struggle, crossed the
street at a bound, entered the cul-de-sac, sprang the bolt of the
little box with the point of his knife, and an instant after was
back at the side of Cosette. He had a rope. These desperate
inventors of expedients, in their struggles with fatality, move
electrically in case of need.

We have explained that the street lamps had not been lighted
that night. The lamp in the Cul-de-sac Genrot was then, as a
matter of course, extinguished like the rest, and one might pass
by without even noticing that it was not in its place.

Meanwhile the hour, the place, the darkness, the preoccupa-
tion of Jean Valjean, his singular actions, his going to and fro,
all this began to disturb Cosette. Any other child would have
uttered loud cries long before. She contented herself with
pulling Jean Valjean by the skirt of his coat. The sound of the
approaching patrol was constantly becoming more and more
distinct.

" Father/' said she, in a whisper, " I am afraid. Who is
that is coming? "

" Hush ! " answered the unhappy man, " it is the Thenardiess."

Cosette shuddered. He added:

" Don't say a word ; I'll take care of her. If you cry, if you
make any noise, the Thenardiess will hear you. She is coming
to catch you."

Then, without any haste, but without doing anything a

Cosette 441

•econd time, with a firm and rapid decision, so much the more
remarkable at such a moment when the patrol and Javert
might come upon him at any instant, he took off his cravat,
passed it around Cosette's body under the arms, taking care
that it should not hurt the child, attached this cravat to an end
of the rope by means of the knot which seamen call a swallow-
knot, took the other end of the rope in his teeth, took off his
shoes and stockings and threw them over the wall, climbed upon
the pile of masonry and began to raise himself in the angle of the
wall and the gable with as much solidity and certainty as if he
had the rounds of a ladder under his heels and his elbows. Half
a minute had not passed before he was on his knees on the wall.

Cosette watched him, stupefied, without saying a word.
Jean Valj can's charge and the name of the Thenardiess had
made her dumb.

All at once, she heard Jean Valjean's voice calling to her in
a low whisper:

" Put your back against the wall."

She obeyed.

" Don't speak, and don't be afraid," added Jean Valjean.

And she felt herself lifted from the ground.

Before she had time to think where she was she was at the
top of the wall.

Jean Valjean seized her, put her on his back, took her two
little hands in his left hand, lay down flat and crawled along the
top of the wall as far as the cut-off corner. As he had supposed,
there was a building there, the roof of which sloped from the top of
the wooden casing we have mentioned very nearly to the ground,
with a gentle inclination, and just reaching to the lime-tree.

A fortunate circumstance, for the wall was much higher on
this side than on the street. Jean Valjean saw the ground
beneath him at a great depth.

He had just reached the inclined plane of the roof, and had
not yet left the crest of the wall, when a violent uproar pro-
claimed the arrival of the patrol. He heard the thundering
voice of Javert:

" Search the cul-de-sac ! The Rue Droit Mur is guarded, the
Petite Rue Picpus also. I'll answer for it he is in the cul-de-sac."

The soldiers rushed into the Cul-de-sac Genrot.

Jean Valjean slid down the roof, keeping hold of Cosette,
reached the lime-tree, and jumped to the ground. Whether
from terror, or from courage, Cosette had not uttered a whisper.
Her hands were a little scraped.

442 Les Miserables

COMMENCEMENT OF AN ENIGMA

JEAN VALJEAN found himself in a sort of garden, very large and
of a singular appearance; one of those gloomy gardens which
seem made to be seen in the winter and at night. This garden
was oblong, with a row of large poplars at the further end, some
tall forest trees in the corners, and a clear space in the centre,
where stood a very large isolated tree, then a few fruit trees,
contorted and shaggy, like big bushes, some vegetable beds, a
melon patch the glass covers of which shone in the moonlight,
and an old well. There were here and there stone benches
which seemed black with moss. The walks were bordered with
sorry little shrubs perfectly straight. The grass covered half of
them, and a green moss covered the rest.

Jean Valjean had on one side the building, down the roof of
which he had come, a wood-pile, and behind the wood, against
the wall, a stone statue, the mutilated face of which was now
nothing but a shapeless mask which was seen dimly through
the obscurity.

The building was in ruins, but some dismantled rooms could
be distinguished in it, one of which was well filled, and appeared
to serve as a shed.

The large building of the Rue Droit Mur which ran back on
the Petite Rue Picpus, presented upon this garden two square
fa?ades. These inside facades were still more gloomy than those
on the outside. All the windows were grated. No light was to
he seen. On the upper stories there were shutters as in prisons.
The shadow of one of these facades was projected upon the other,
and fell on the garden like an immense black pall.

No other house could be seen. The further end of the garden
was lost in mist and in darkness. Still, he could make out walls
intersecting, as if there were other cultivated grounds beyond,
as well as the low roofs of the Rue Polonceau.

Nothing can be imagined more wild and more solitary than
this garden. There was no one there, which was very natural on
account of the hour; but it did not seem as if the place were
made for anybody to walk in, even in broad noon.

Jean Val jean's first care had been to find his shoes, and put
them on; then he entered the shed with Cosette. A man trying
to escape never thinks himself sufficiently concealed. The child,

Cosette 443

thinking constantly of the Thenardiess, shared his instinct, and
cowered down as closely as she could.

Cosette trembled, and pressed closely to his side. They
heard the tumultuous clamour of the patrol ransacking the
cul-de-sac and the street, the clatter of their muskets against
the stones, the calls of Javert to the watchmen he had stationed,
and his imprecations mingled with words which they could not
distinguish.

At the end of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though this
stormy rumbling began to recede. Jean Valj ean did not breathe.

He had placed his hand gently upon Cosette's mouth.

But the solitude about him was so strangely calm that that
frightful din, so furious and so near, did not even cast over it a
shadow of disturbance. It seemed as if these walls were built
of the deaf stones spoken of in Scripture.

Suddenly, in the midst of this deep calm, a new sound arose;
a celestial, divine, ineffable sound, as ravishing as the other was
horrible. It was a hymn which came forth from the darkness,
a bewildering mingling of prayer and harmony in the obscure
and fearful silence of the night; voices of women, but voices
with the pure accents of virgins, and artless accents of children ;
those voices which are not of earth, and which resemble those
that the new-born still hear, and the dying hear already. This
song came from the gloomy building which overlooked the
garden. At the moment when the uproar of the demons
receded, one would have said, it was a choir of angels approach-
ing in the darkness.

Cosette and Jean Valj ean fell on their knees.

They knew not what it was; they knew not where they were;
but they both felt, the man and the child, the penitent and the
innocent, that they ought to be on their knees.

These voices had this strange effect; they did not prevent the
building from appearing deserted. It was like a supernatural
song in an uninhabited dwelling.

While these voices were singing Jean Valj ean was entirely
absorbed in them. He no longer saw the night, he saw a blue
sky. He seemed to feel the spreading of these wings which we
all have within us.

The chant ceased. Perhaps it had lasted a long time. Jean
Valj ean could not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more
than a moment.

All had again relapsed into silence. There was nothing more
in the street, nothing more in the garden. That which

444 Les Miserables

threatened, that which reassured, all had vanished. The wind
rattled the dry grass on the top of the wall, which made a low,
soft, and mournful noise.

VII

THE ENIGMA CONTINUED

THE night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be
between one and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette did
not speak. As she had sat down at his side and leaned her head
on him, Jean Valjean thought that she was asleep. He bent
over and looked at her. Her eyes were wide open, and she had
a look that gave Jean Valjean pain.

She was still trembling.

" Are you sleepy ? " said Jean Valjean.

" I am very cold," she answered.

A moment after she added:

"Is she there yet?"

" Who ? " said Jean Valjean.

" Madame Thenardier."

Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means he had em-
ployed to secure Cosette's silence.

" Oh ! " said he. " She has gone. Don't be afraid any longer."

The child sighed as if a weight were lifted from her breast.

The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the wind
freshened every moment. The goodman took off his coat and
wrapped Cosette in it.

" Are you warmer, so ? "

"Oh! yes, father!"

" Well, wait here a moment for me. I shall soon be back."

He went out of the ruin, and along by the large building, in
search of some better shelter. He found doors, but they were
all closed. All the windows of the ground-floor were barred.

As he passed the interior angle of the building, he noticed
several arched windows before him, where he perceived some
light. He rose on tiptoe and looked in at one of these windows.
They all opened into a large hall, paved with broad slabs, and
intersected by arches and pillars, he could distinguish nothing
but a slight glimmer in the deep obscurity. This glimmer
came from a night-lamp burning in a corner. The hall was
deserted; everything was motionless. However, by dint of
looking, he thought he saw something, stretched out on the

Cosette 445

pavement, which appeared to be covered with a shroud, and
which resembled a human form. It was lying with the face
downwards, the arms crossed, in the immobility of death.
One would have said, from a sort of serpent which trailed along
the pavement, that this ill-omened figure had a rope about its
neck.

The whole hall was enveloped in that mist peculiar to dimly-
lighted places, which always increases horror.

Jean Valjean has often said since that, although in the course
of his life he had seen many funereal sights, never had he seen
anything more freezing and more terrible than this enigmatical
figure fulfilling some strange mystery, he knew not what, in that
gloomy place, and thus dimly seen in the night. It was terrify-
ing to suppose that it was perhaps dead, and still more terrifying
to think that it might be alive.

He had the courage to press his forehead against the glass,
and watch to see if the thing would move. He remained what
seemed to him a long time in vain; the prostrate form made
no movement. Suddenly he was seized with an inexpressible
dismay, and he fled. He ran towards the shed without daring
to look behind him. It seemed to him that if he should turn
his head he would see the figure walking behind him with rapid
strides and shaking its arms.

He reached the ruin breathless. His knees gave way; a cold
sweat oozed out from every pore.

Where was he? who would ever have imagined anything
equal to this species of sepulchre in the midst of Paris? what
was this strange house ? A building full of nocturnal mystery,
calling to souls in the shade with the voice of angels, and, when
they came, abruptly presenting to them this frightful vision-
promising to open the radiant gate of Heaven and opening the
horrible door of the tomb. And that was in fact a building, a
house which had its number in a street? It was not a dream ?
He had to touch the walls to believe it.

The cold, the anxiety, the agitation, the anguish of the night,
were giving him a veritable fever, and all his ideas were jostling
in his brain.

He went to Cosette. She was sleeping.

446 Lcs Miserables

VIII

THE ENIGMA REDOUBLES

THE child had laid her head upon a stone and gone to sleep.

He sat down near her and looked at her. Little by little, as
he beheld her, he grew calm, and regained possession of his
clearness of mind.

He plainly perceived this truth, the basis of his life henceforth,
that so long as she should be alive, so long as he should have
her with him, he should need nothing except for her, and fear
nothing save on her account. He did not even realise that he
was very cold, having taken off his coat to cover her.

Meanwhile, through the reverie into which he had fallen, he
had heard for some time a singular noise. It sounded like a little
bell that some one was shaking. This noise was in the garden.
It was heard distinctly, though feebly. It resembled the dimly
heard tinkling of cow-bells in the pastures at night.

This noise made Jean Valjean turn.

He looked, and saw that there was some one in the garden.

Something which resembled a man was walking among the
glass cases of the melon patch, rising up, stooping down, stop-
ping, with a regular motion, as if he were drawing or stretching
something upon the ground. This being appeared to limp.

Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the
outcast. To them everything is hostile and suspicious. They
distrust the day because it helps to discover them, and the night
because it helps to surprise them. Just now he was shuddering
because the garden was empty, now he shuddered because there
was some one in it.

He fell again from chimerical terrors into real terrors. He
said to himself that perhaps Javert and his spies had not gone
away, that they had doubtless left somebody on the watch in the
street; that, if this man should discover him in the garden, he
would cry thief, and would deliver him up. He took the sleep-
ing Cosette gently in his arms and carried her into the furthest
corner of the shed behind a heap of old furniture that was out
of use. Cosette did not stir.

From there he watched the strange motions of the man in the
melon patch. It seemed very singular, but the sound of the
bell followed every movement of the man. When the man
approached, the sound approached; when he moved away, the

Cosette 447

sound moved away; if he made some sudden motion, a trill
accompanied the motion; when he stopped, the noise ceased.
It seemed evident that the bell was fastened to this man; but
then what could that mean ? what was this man to whom a bell
was hung as to a ram or a cow ?

While he was revolving these questions, he touched Cosette's
hands. They were icy.

"Oh! God! "said he.

He called to her in a low voice:

" Cosette ! "

She did not open her eyes.

He shook her smartly.

She did not wake.

" Could she be dead ? " said he, and he sprang up, shuddering
from head to foot.

The most frightful thoughts rushed through his mind in con-
fusion. There are moments when hideous suppositions besiege
us like a throng of furies and violently force the portals of our
brain. When those whom we love are in danger, our solicitude
invents all sorts of follies. He remembered that sleep may be
fatal in the open air in a cold night.

Cosette was pallid; she had fallen prostrate on the ground at
his feet, making no sign.

He listened for her breathing; she was breathing ; but with a
respiration that appeared feeble and about to stop.

How should he get her warm again? how rouse her? All
else was banished from his thoughts. He rushed desperately
out of the ruin.

It was absolutely necessary that in less than a quarter of an
hour Cosette should be in bed and before a fire.

IX
THE MAN WITH THE BELL

HE walked straight to the man whom he saw in the garden. He
had taken in his hand the roll of money which was in his vest-
pocket.

This man had his head down, and did not see him coming.
A few strides, Jean Valjean was at his side.

Jean Valjean approached him, exclaiming:

"A hundred francs!"

The man started and raised his eyes.

Les Miserables

" A hundred francs for you," continued Jean Valjean, " if
you will give me refuge to-night."

The moon shone full in Jean Valjean's bewildered face.

" What, it is you, Father Madeleine ! " said the man.

This name, thus pronounced, at this dark hour, in this unknown
place, by this unknown man, made Jean Valjean start back.

He was ready for anything but that. The speaker was an
old man, bent and lame, dressed much like a peasant, who had
on his left knee a leather knee-cap from which hung a bell.
His face was in the shade, and could not be distinguished.

Meanwhile the goodman had taken off his cap, and was ex-
claiming, tremulously:

" Ah ! my God ! how did you come here, Father Madeleine ?
How did you get in, O Lord? Did you fall from the sky?
There is no doubt, if you ever do fall, you will fall from there.
And what has happened to you ? You have no cravat, you have
no hat, you have no coat? Do you know that you would have
frightened anybody who did not know you ? No coat ? Merci-
ful heavens! are the saints all crazy now? But how did you
get in?"

One word did not wait for another. The old man spoke with
a rustic volubility in which there was nothing disquieting. All
this was said with a mixture of astonishment, and frank good
nature.

" Who are you ? and what is this house ! " asked Jean Valjean.

" Oh! indeed, that is good now," exclaimed the old man, " I
am the one you got the place for here, and this house is the
one you got me the place in. What ! you don't remember
me?"

" No," said Jean Valjean. " And how does it happen that
you know me? "

" You saved my life ? " said the man.

He turned, a ray of the moon lighted up his side face, and Jean
Valjean recognised old Fauchelevent.

" Ah! " said Jean Valjean, " it is you? yes, I remember you."

" That is very fortunate! " said the old man, in a reproachful
tone.

" And what are you doing here? " added Jean Valjean.

"Oh! I am covering my melons."

Old Fauchelevent had in his hand, indeed, at the moment when
Jean Valjean accosted him, the end of a piece of awning which
he was stretching out over the melon patch. He had already
spread out several in this way during the hour he had been in

Cosette

449

the garden. It was this work which made him go through the
peculiar motions observed by Jean Valjean from the shed.

He continued:

" I said to myself: the moon is bright, there is going to be a
frost. Suppose I put their jackets on my melons? And,"
added he, looking at Jean Valjean, with a loud laugh, " you
would have done well to do as much for yourself? but how did
you come here? "

Jean Valjean, finding that he was known by this man, at least
under his name of Madeleine, went no further with his pre-
cautions. He multiplied questions. Oddly enough their parts
seemed reversed. It was he, the intruder, who put questions.

" And what is this bell you have on your knee? "

" That! " answered Fauchelevent, " that is so that they may
keep away from me."

" How! keep away from you? "

Old Fauchelevent winked in an indescribable manner.

"Ah! Bless me! there's nothing but women in this house;
plenty of young girls. It seems that I am dangerous to meet.
The bell warns them. When I come they go away."

" What is this house? "

" Why, you know very well."

" No, I don't."

" Why, you got me this place here as gardener."

" Answer me as if I didn't know."

" Well, it is the Convent of the Petit Picpus, then."

Jean Valjean remembered. Chance, that is to say, Providence,
had thrown him precisely into this convent of the Quartier
Saint Antoine, to which old Fauchelevent, crippled by his fall
from his cart, had been admitted, upon his recommendation,
two years before. He repeated as if he were talking to himself:

" The Convent of the Petit Picpus! "

" But now, really," resumed Fauchelevent, " how the deuce
did you manage to get in, you, Father Madeleine ? It is no use
for you to be a saint, you are a man; and no men come in here."

" But you are here."

" There is none but me."

" But," resumed Jean Valjean, " I must stay here."

"Oh! my God," exclaimed Fauchelevent.

Jean Valjean approached the old man, and said to him in a
grave voice:

" Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life."

" I was first to remember it," answered Fauchelevent.
I p

45 o Les Miserables

" Well, you can now do for me what I once did for you."

Fauchelevent grasped in his old wrinkled and trembling hands
the robust hands of Jean Valjean, and it was some seconds
before he could speak; at last he exclaimed:

" Oh ! that would be a blessing of God if I could do some-
thing for you, in return for that ! I save your life ! Monsieur
Mayor, the old man is at your disposal."

A wonderful joy had, as it were, transfigured the old gardener.
A radiance seemed to shine forth from his face.

" What do you want me to do? " he added.

" I will explain. You have a room ? "

" I have a solitary shanty, over there, behind the ruins of the
old convent, in a corner that nobody ever sees. There are three
rooms."

The shanty was in fact so well concealed behind the ruins, and
so well arranged, that no one should see it — that Jean Valjean
had not seen it.

" Good," said Jean Valjean. " Now I ask of you two things."

" What are they, Monsieur Madeleine? "

" First, that you will not tell anybody what you know about
me. Second, that you will not attempt to learn anything more."

" As you please. I know that you can do nothing dishonour-
able, and that you have always been a man of God. And then,
besides, it was you that put me here. It is your place, I am
yours."

" Very well. But now come with me. We will go for the child."

" Ah ! " said Fauchelevent, " there is a child ! "

He said not a word more, but followed Jean Valjean as a dog
follows his master.

In half an hour Cosette, again become rosy before a good fire,
was asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on
his cravat and coat; his hat, which he had thrown over the wall,
had been found and brought in. While Jean Valjean was
putting on his coat, Fauchelevent had taken off his knee-cap
with the bell attached, which now, hanging on a nail near a
shutter, decorated the wall. The two men were warming them-
selves, with their elbows on a table, on which Fauchelevent had
set a piece of cheese, some brown bread, a bottle of wine, and
two glasses, and the old man said to Jean Valjean, putting his
hand on his knee:

" Ah ! Father Madeleine ! you didn't know me at first? You
save people's lives and then you forget them ? Oh! that's bad;
they remember you. You are ungrateful ! "

Cosettc

45'

IN WHICH IS EXPLAINED HOW JAVERT LOST THE GAME

THE events, the reverse of which, so to speak, we have just seen,
had been brought about under the simplest conditions.

When Jean Valjean, on the night of the very day that Javert
arrested him at the death-bed of Fantine, escaped from the

municipal prison of M sur M , the police supposed that

the escaped convict would start for Paris. Paris is a maelstrom
in which everything is lost; and everything disappears in this
whirlpool of the world as in the whirlpool of the sea. No forest
conceals a man like this multitude. Fugitives of all kinds know
this. They go to Paris to be swallowed up; there are swallow-
ings-up which save. The police know it also, and it is in Paris
that they search for what they have lost elsewhere. They

searched there for the ex-mayor of M sur M . Javert

was summoned to Paris to aid in the investigation. Javert, in
fact, was of great aid in the recapture of Jean Valjean. The
zeal and intelligence of Javert on this occasion were remarked
by M. Chabouillet, Secretary of the Prefecture, under Count
Angles. M. Chabouillet, who had already interested himself in

Javert, secured the transfer of the inspector of M sur M —

to the police of Paris. There Javert rendered himself in various
ways, and, let us say, although the word seems unusual for such
service, honourably, useful.

He thought no more of Jean Valjean — with these hounds
always upon the scent, the wolf of to-day banishes the memory
of the wolf of yesterday — when, in December, 1823, he read a
newspaper, he who never read the newspapers; but Javert,
as a monarchist, made a point of knowing the details of the
triumphal entry of the " Prince generalissimo " into Bayonne.
Just as he finished the article which interested him, a name —
the name of Jean Valjean — at the bottom of the page attracted
his attention. The newspaper announced that the convict Jean
Valjean was dead, and published the fact in terms so explicit,
that Javert had no doubt of it. He merely said : " That settles
it." Then he threw aside the paper, and thought no more
of it.

Some time afterwards it happened that a police notice was
transmitted by the Prefecture of Seine-et-Oise to the Prefecture
of Police of Paris in relation to the kidnapping of a child, which
had taken place, it was said, under peculiar circumstances, in

452 Les Miserables

the commune of Montfermeil. A little girl, seven or eight years
old, the notice said, who had been confided by her mother to an
innkeeper of the country', had been stolen by an unknown man ;
this little girl answered to the name of Cosette, and was the
child of a young woman named Fantine, who had died at the
Hospital, nobody knew when or where. This notice came under
the eyes of Javert, and set him to thinking.

The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered
that Jean Valjean had actually made him — Javert — laugh aloud
by asking of him a respite of three days, in order to go for the
child of this creature. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean
had been arrested at Paris, at the moment he was getting into
the Montfermeil diligence. Some indications had even led him
to think then that it was the second time that he was entering
this diligence, and that he had already, the night previous,
made another excursion to the environs of this village, for he
had not been seen in the village itself. What was he doing
in this region of Montfermeil? Nobody could divine. Javert
understood it. The daughter of Fantine was there. Jean
Valjean was going after her. Now this child had been stolen
by an unknown man! Who could this man be? Could it be
Jean Valjean? But Jean Valjean was dead. Javert, without
saying a word to any one, took the diligence at the Plat d'Etain,
cul-de-sac de Planchette, and took a trip to Montfermeil.

He expected to find great developments there; he found great
obscurity.

For the first few days, the Thenardiers, in their spite, had
blabbed the story about. The disappearance of the Lark had
made some noise in the village. There were soon several
versions of the story, which ended by becoming a case of kid-
napping. Hence the police notice. However, when the first
ebullition was over, Thenardier, with admirable instinct, very
soon arrived at the conclusion that it is never useful to set in
motion the Procureur du Roi; that the first result of his com-
plaints in regard to the kidnapping of Cosette would be to fix
upon himself, and on many business troubles which he had, the
keen eye of justice. The last thing that owls wish is a candle.
And first of all, how should he explain the fifteen hundred francs
he had received? He stopped short, and enjoined secresy upon
his wife, and professed to be astonished when anybody spoke
to him of the stolen child. He knew nothing about it; un-
doubtedly he had made some complaint at the time that the
dear little girl should be " taken away " so suddenly; he would

Cosette 453

have liked, for affection's sake, to keep her two or three days;
but it was her " grandfather " who had come for her, the most
natural thing in the world. He had added the grandfather,
which sounded well. It was upon this story that Javert fell on
reaching Montfermeil. The grandfather put Jean Valjean out
of the question.

Javert, however, dropped a few questions like plummets
into The'nardier's story. Who was this grandfather, and what
was his name? Thenardier answered with simplicity: "He
is a rich farmer, I saw his passport. I believe his name is M.
Guillaume Lambert."

Lambert is a very respectable reassuring name. Javert
returned to Paris.

" Jean Valjean is really dead," said he, " and I am a fool."

He had begun to forget all this story, when, in the month of
March, 1824, he heard an odd person spoken of who lived in the
parish of Saint Medard, and who was called " the beggar who
gives alms." This person was, it was said, a man living on his
income, whose name nobody knew exactly, and who lived alone
with a little girl eight years old, who knew nothing of herself
except that she came from Montfermeil. Montfermeil! This
name constantly recurring, excited Javert's attention anew.
An old begging police spy, formerly a beadle, to whom this
person had extended his charity, added some other details.
" This man was very unsociable, never going out except at
night, speaking to nobody, except to the poor sometimes, and
allowing nobody to get acquainted with him. He wore a
horrible old yellow coat which was worth millions, being lined
all over with bank bills." This decidedly piqued Javert's
curiosity. That he might get a near view of this fantastic rich
man without frightening him away, he borrowed one day of the
beadle his old frock, and the place where the old spy squatted
every night droning out his orisons and playing the spy as he
prayed.

" The suspicious individual " did indeed come to Javert thus
disguised, and gave him alms; at that moment Javert raised his
head, and the shock which Jean Valjean received, thinking that
he recognised Javert, Javert received, thinking that he recog-
nised Jean Valjean.

However, the obscurity might have deceived him, the death of
Jean Valjean was officially certified; Javert had still serious
doubts; and in case of doubt, Javert, scrupulous as he was,
never seized any man by the collar.

454 Les Miserables

He followed the old man to Gorbeau House, and set " the old
woman " talking, which was not at all difficult. The old
woman confirmed the story of the coat lined with millions, and
related to him the episode of the thousand-franc note. She
had seen it! she had touched itl Javert hired a room. That
very night he installed himself in it. He listened at the door
of the mysterious lodger, hoping to hear the sound of his voice,
but Jean Valjean perceived his candle through the key-hole and
baulked the spy by keeping silence.

The next day Jean Valjean decamped. But the noise of the
five-franc piece which he dropped was noticed by the old woman,
who hearing money moving, suspected that he was going to
move, and hastened to forewarn Javert. At night, when Jean
Valjean went out, Javert was waiting for him behind the trees
of the boulevard with two men.

Javert had called for assistance from the Prefecture, but he
had not given the name of the person he hoped to seize. That
was his secret; and he kept it for three reasons; first, because
the least indiscretion might give the alarm to Jean Valjean;
next, because the arrest of an old escaped convict who was
reputed dead, a criminal whom the records of justice had already
classed for ever among malefactors of the most dangerous kind,
would be a magnificent success which the old members of the
Parisian police certainly would never leave to a new-comer like
Javert, and he feared they would take his galley-slave away
from him ; finally, because Javert, being an artist, had a liking
for surprises. He hated these boasted successes which are
deflowered by talking of them long in advance. He liked to
elaborate his masterpieces in the shade, and then to unveil them
suddenly afterwards.

Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from
street corner to street corner, and had not lost sight of him a
single instant; even in the moments when Jean Valjean felt
himself most secure, the eye of Javert v/as upon him. Why did
not Javert arrest Jean Valjean ? Because he was still in doubt.

It must be remembered that at that time the police was not
exactly at its ease; it was cramped by a free press. Some
arbitrary arrests, denounced by the newspapers, had been re-
echoed even in the Chambers, and rendered the Prefecture timid.
To attack individual liberty was a serious thing. The officers
were afraid of making mistakes; the Prefect held them respons-
ible; an error was the loss of their place. Imagine the effect
which this brief paragraph, repeated in twenty papers, would

Cosettc 455

have produced in Paris. " Yesterday, an old white-haired
grandsire, a respectable person living on his income, who was
taking a walk with his grand-daughter, eight years old, was
arrested and taken to the Station of the Prefecture as an escaped
convict ! "

Let us say, in addition, that Javert had his own personal
scruples; the injunctions of his conscience were added to the
injunctions of the Prefect. He was really in doubt.

Jean Valjean turned his back, and walked away in the
darkness.

Sadness, trouble, anxiety, weight of cares, this new sorrow of
being obliged to fly by night, and to seek a chance asylum in
Paris for Cosette and himself, the necessity of adapting his pace
to the pace of a child, all this, without his knowing it even, had
changed Jean Valjean's gait, and impressed upon his carriage
such an appearance of old age that the police itself, incarnated
in Javert, could be deceived. The impossibility of approaching
too near, his dress of an old preceptor of the emigration, the
declaration of Thenardier, who made him a grandfather; finally,
the belief in his death at the galleys, added yet more to the
uncertainty which was increasing in Javert's mind.

For a moment he had an idea of asking him abruptly for his
papers. But if the man were not Jean Valjean, and if the man
were not a good old honest man of means, he was probably
some sharper profoundly and skilfully adept in the obscure web
of Parisian crime, some dangerous chief of bandits, giving alms
to conceal his other talents, an old trick. He had comrades,
accomplices, retreats on all hands, in which he would take
refuge without doubt. All these windings which he was making
in the streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple
honest man. To arrest him too soon would be " to kill the
goose that laid the golden eggs." What inconvenience was there
in waiting ? Javert was very sure that he would not escape.

He walked on, therefore, in some perplexity, questioning
himself continually in regard to this mysterious personage.

It was not until quite late, in the Rue de Pontoise, that,
thanks to the bright light which streamed from a bar-room, he
decidedly recognised Jean Valjean.

There are in this world two beings who can be deeply thrilled :
the mother, who finds her child, and the tiger, who finds his
prey. Javert felt this profound thrill.

As soon as he had positively recognised Jean Valjean, the
formidable convict, he perceived that there were only three.

456 Les Miserables

of them, and sent to the commissary of police, of the Rue de
Pontoise, for additional aid. Before grasping a thorny stick,
men put on gloves.

This delay and stopping at the Rollin square to arrange with
his men made him lose the scent. However, he had very soon
guessed that Jean Valj can's first wish would be to put the river
between his pursuers and himself. He bowed his head and
reflected, like a hound who put his nose to the ground to be
sure of the way. Javert, with his straightforward power of
instinct, went directly to the bridge of Austerlitz. A word to
the toll-keeper set him right. " Have you seen a man with a
little girl? " " I made him pay two sous," answered the toll-
man. Javert reached the bridge in time to see Jean Valj can
on the other side of the river leading Cosette across the space
lighted by the moon. He saw him enter the Rue de Chemin
Vert Saint Antoine, he thought of the Cul-de-sac Genrot placed
there like a trap, and of the only outlet from the Rue Droit Mur
into the Petite Rue Picpus. He put out beaters, as hunters
say; he sent one of his men hastily by a detour to guard that
outlet. A patrol passing, on its return to the station at the
arsenal, he put it in requisition, and took it along with him.
In such games soldiers are trumps. Moreover, it is a maxim
that, to take the boar requires the science of the hunter, and
the strength of the dogs. These combinations being effected,
feeling that Jean Valj can was caught between the Cul-de-sac
Genrot on the right, his officer on the left, and himself, Javert,
in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff.

Then he began to play. He enjoyed a ravishing and infernal
moment; he let his man go before him. knowing that he had
him, but desiring to put off as long as possible the moment of
arresting him, delighting to feel that he was caught, and to see
him free, fondly gazing upon him with the rapture of the spider
which lets the fly buzz, or the cat which lets the mouse run.
The paw and the talon find a monstrous pleasure in the quivering
of the animal imprisoned in their grasp. What delight there is
in this suffocation !

Javert was rejoicing. The links of his chain were solidly
welded. He was sure of success; he had now only to close
his hand.

Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was
impossible, however energetic, however vigorous, and however
desperate Jean Valj can might be.

Javert advanced slowly, sounding and ransacking on his way

Cosette

457

all the recesses of the street as he would the pockets of a
thief.

When he reached the centre of the web, the fly was no longer
there.

Imagine his exasperation.

He questioned his sentinel at the corner of the Rue Droit Mur
and Rue Picpus; this officer, who had remained motionless at
his post, had not seen the man pass.

It happens sometimes that a stag breaks with the head
covered, that is to say escapes, although the hound is upon him;
then the oldest hunters know not what to say. Duvivier,
Ligniville, and Desprez are at fault. On the occasion of a
mishap of this sort, Artonge exclaimed: It is not a stag, it is
a sorcerer.

Javert would fain have uttered the same cry.

His disappointment had a moment of despair and fury.

It is certain that Napoleon blundered in the campaign in
Russia, that Alexander blundered in the war in India, that
Caesar blundered in the African war, that Cyrus blundered in
the war in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign
against Jean Valjean. He did wrong perhaps in hesitating to
recognise the old galley slave. The first glance should have
been enough for him. He did wrong in not seizing him without
ceremony in the old building. He did wrong in not arresting
him when he positively recognised him in the Rue de Pontoise.
He did wrong to hold a council with his aids, in full moonlight,
in the Rollin square. Certainly advice is useful, and it is well
to know and to question those of the dogs which are worthy
of credit; but the hunter cannot take too many precautions
when he is chasing restless animals, like the wolf and the convict.
Javert, by too much forethought in setting his bloodhounds
on the track, alarmed his prey by giving him wind of the pursuit,
and allowed him the start. He did wrong, above all, when
he had regained the scent at the bridge of Austerlitz, to play
the formidable and puerile game of holding such a man at the
end of a thread. He thought himself stronger than he was,
and believed he could play mouse with a lion. At the same
time, he esteemed himself too weak when he deemed it necessary
to obtain a reinforcement. Fatal precaution, loss of precious
time. Javert made all these blunders, and yet he was none
the less one of the wisest and most correct detectives that
ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what in
venery is called a gentle dog. But who is perfect?

45 ^ Les Miserables

Great strategists have their eclipses.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude
of fibres. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately all
the little determining motives, you break them one after another,
and you say : that is all. Wind them and twist them together
they become an enormity; Attila hesitating between Marcian
in the East and Valentinian in the West; Hannibal delaying at
Capua; Dan ton falling to sleep at Arcis sur Aube.

However this may be, even at the moment when he perceived
that Jean Valjean had escaped him, Javert did not lose his
presence of mind. Sure that the convict who had broken his
ban could not be far away, he set watches, arranged traps and
ambushes, and beat the quarter the night through. The first
thing that he saw was the displacement of the lamp, the rope
of which was cut. Precious indication, which led him astray,
however, by directing all his researches towards the Cul-de-sac
Genrot. There are in that cul-de-sac some rather low walls
which face upon gardens the limits of which extend to some
very large uncultivated grounds. Jean Valjean evidently must
have fled that way. The fact is that, if he had penetrated into
the Cul-de-sac Genrot a little further, he would have done so,
and would have been lost. Javert explored these gardens and
these grounds, as if he were searching for a needle.

At daybreak, he left two intelligent men on the watch, and
returned to the Prefecture of Police, crestfallen as a spy who
has been caught by a thief.

BOOK SIXTH— PETIT PICPUS
I

PETITE RUE PICPUS, NO. 62.

NOTHING resembled more closely, half a century ago, the
commonest porte-cochere of the time than the porte-cochere of
No. 62 Petite Rue Picpus. This door was usually half open in
the most attractive manner, disclosing two things which have
nothing very funereal about them — a court surrounded with
walls bedecked with vines, and the face of a lounging porter.
Above the rear wall large trees could be seen. When a beam
of sunshine enlivened the court, when a glass of wine enlivened
the porter, it was difficult to pass by No. 62 Petite Rue Picpus,
without carrying away a pleasant idea. It was, however, a
gloomy place of which you had had a glimpse.

The door smiled ; the house prayed and wept.

If you succeeded, which was not easy, in passing the porter —
which for almost everybody was even impossible, for there was
an open sesame which you must know; — if, having passed the
porter, you entered on the right a little vestibule which led to
a stairway shut in between two walls, and so narrow that but
one person could pass at a time ; if you did not allow yourself
to be frightened by the yellow wall paper with the chocolate
surbase that extended along the stairs, if you ventured to go
up, you passed by a first broad stair, then a second, and
reached the second story in a hall where the yellow hue and the
chocolate plinth followed you with a peaceful persistency.
Staircase and hall were lighted by two handsome windows.
The hall made a sudden turn and became dark. If you doubled
that cape, you came, in a few steps, to a door, all the more
mysterious that it was not quite closed. You pushed it open,
and found yourself in a little room about six feet square, the
floor tiled, scoured, neat and cold, and the walls hung with
fifteen-cent paper, nankeen-coloured paper with green flowers.
A dull white light came from a large window with small panes
which was at the left, and which took up the whole width of
the room. You looked, you saw no one; you listened, you

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460

Les Miserables

heard no step and no human sound. The wall was bare; the
room had no furniture, not even a chair.

You looked again, and you saw in the wall opposite the door
a quadrangular opening about a foot square, covered with a
grate of iron bars crossing one another, black, knotted, solid,
which formed squares, I had almost said meshes, less than an
inch across. The little green flowers on the nankeen paper
came calmly and in order to these iron bars, without being
frightened or scattered by the dismal contact. In case any
living being had been so marvellously slender as to attempt to
get in or out by the square hole, this grate would have prevented
it. It did not let the body pass, but it did let the eyes pass,
that is to say, the mind. This seemed to have been cared for,
for it had been doubled by a sheet of tin inserted in the wall a
little behind it, and pierced with a thousand holes more micro-
scopic than those of a skimmer. At the bottom of this plate
there was an opening cut exactly like the mouth of a letter-box.
A piece of broad tape attached to a bell hung at the right of
the grated opening.

If you pulled this tape, a bell tinkled and a voice was heard,
very near you, which startled you.

" Who is there? " asked the voice.

It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was
mournful.

Here again there was a magic word which you must know.
If you did not know it, the voice was heard no more, and the
wall again became silent as if the wild obscurity of the sepulchre
had been on the other side.

If you knew the word, the voice added :

" Enter at the right."

You then noticed at your right, opposite the window, a glazed
door surmounted by a glazed sash and painted grey. You
lifted the latch, you passed through the door, and you felt
exactly the same impression as when you enter a grated box at
the theatre before the grate is lowered and the lights are lit.
You were in fact in a sort of theatre box, hardly made visible
by the dim light of the glass door, narrow, furnished with two
old chairs and a piece of tattered straw matting — a genuine box
with its front to lean upon, upon which was a tablet of black
wood. This box was grated, but it was not a grate of gilded
wood as at the Opera; it was a monstrous trellis of iron bars
frightfully tangled together, and bolted to the wall by enormous
bolts which resembled clenched fists.

Cosette 461

After a few minutes, when your eyes began to get accustomed
to this cavernous light, you tried to look through the grate, but
could not see more than six inches beyond. There you saw a
barrier of black shutters, secured and strengthened by wooden
cross-bars painted gingerbread colour. These shutters were
jointed, divided into long slender strips, and covered the whole
length of the grate. They were always closed.

In a few moments, you heard a voice calling to you from
behind these shutters and saying:

" I am here. What do you want of me ? "

It was a loved voice, perhaps sometimes an adored one. You
saw nobody. You hardly heard a breath. It seemed as if it
were a ghostly voice speaking to you across the portal of the
tomb.

If you appeared under certain necessary conditions, very rare,
the narrow strip of one of these shutters opened in front of you,
and the ghostly voice became an apparition. Behind the grate,
behind the shutter, you perceived, as well as the grate per-
mitted, a head, of which you saw only the mouth and chin; the
rest was covered with a black veil. You caught a glimpse of a
black guimp and an ill-defined form covered with a black shroud.
This head spoke to you, but did not look at you and never
smiled at you.

The light which came from behind you was disposed in such
wise that you saw her in the light, and she saw you in the
shade. This light was symbolic.

Meantime your eyes gazed eagerly, through this aperture
thus opened, into this place closed against all observation.

A deep obscurity enveloped this form thus clad in mourning.
Your eyes strained into this obscurity, and sought to distinguish
what was about the apparition. In a little while you perceived
that you saw nothing. What you saw was night, void, dark-
ness, a wintry mist mingled with a sepulchral vapour, a sort of
terrifying quiet, a silence from which you distinguished nothing,
not even sighs — a shade in which you discerned nothing, not
even phantoms.

What you saw was the interior of a cloister.

It was the interior of that stern and gloomy house that was
called the convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adora-
tion. This box where you were was the parlour. This voice,
the first that spoke to you, was the voice of the portress, who
was always seated, motionless and silent, on the other side
of the wall, near the square aperture, defended by the iron

462 Les Miserables

grate and the plate with the thousand holes, as by a double
visor.

The obscurity in which the grated box was sunk arose from
this, that the locutory, which had a window on the side towards
the outside world, had none on the convent side. Profane
eyes must see nothing of this sacred place.

There was something, however, beyond this shade, there
was a light; there was a life within this death. Although this
convent was more inaccessible than any other, we shall en-
deavour to penetrate it, and to take the reader with us, and to
relate, as fully as we may, something which story-tellers have
never seen, and consequently have never related.

THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA

THIS convent, which in 1824 had existed for long years in the
Petite Rue Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the
Obedience of Martin Verga.

These Bernardines, consequently, were attached, not to
Clairvaux, like other Bernardines, but to Qteaux, like the
Benedictines. In other words, they were subjects, not of Saint
Bernard, but of Saint Benedict.

Whoever is at all familiar with old folios, knows that Martin
Verga founded in 1425 a congregation of Bernardine-Bene-
dictines, having their chief convent at Salamanca and an
affiliation at Alcald.

This congregation had put out branches in all the Catholic
countries of Europe.

These grafts of one order upon another are not unusual in the
Latin church. To speak only of the single order of St. Benedict,
which is here in question — to this order are attached, without
counting the Obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations;
two in Italy, Monte Cassino and Santa Giustina of Padua, two in
France, Cluny and Saint Maur; and nine orders, Vallombrosa,
Grammont, the Coelestines, the Camaldules, the Carthusians,
the Humiliati, the Olivetans, the Sylvestrines, and finally
Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, the trunk of other orders, is only an
off-shoot from Saint Benedict. Citeaux dates from St. Robert,
Abbe of Molesme, in the diocese of Langres in 1098. Now it
was in 529 that the devil, who had retired to the desert of
Subiaco (he was old; had he become a hermit?), was driven

Cosette 463

from the ancient temple of Apollo where he was living with
St. Benedict, then seventeen years old.

Next to the rules of the Carmelites, who go bare-footed, wear
a withe about their throat, and never sit down, the most severe
rules are those of the Bernardine-Benedictines of Martin Verga.
They are clothed with a black guimp, which, according to the
express command of Saint Benedict, comes up to the chin. A
serge dress with wide sleeves, a large woollen veil, the guimp
which rises to the chin, cut square across the breast, and the
fillet which comes down to the eyes, constitute their dress.
It is all black, except the fillet, which is white. The novices
wear the same dress, all in white. The professed nuns have in
addition a rosary by their side.

The Bernardine-Benedictines of Martin Verga perform the
devotion of the Perpetual Adoration, as do the Benedictines
called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, who, at the commence-
ment of this century, had at Paris two houses, one at the Temple,
the other in the Rue Neuve Sainte Genevieve. In other respects,
the Bernardine-Benedictines of the Petit Picpus, of whom we
are speaking, were an entirely separate order from the Ladies
of the Holy Sacrament, whose cloisters were in the Rue Neuve
Sainte Genevieve and at the Temple. There were many differ-
ences in their rules, there were some in their costume. The
Bernardine-Benedictines of the Petit Picpus wore a black
guimp, and the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament and of
the Rue Neuve Sainte Genevieve wore a white one, and had
moreover upon their breast a crucifix about three inches long
in silver or copper gilt. The nuns of the Petit Picpus did not
wear this crucifix. The devotion of the Perpetual Adoration,
common to the house of the Petit Picpus and to the house of
the Temple, left the two orders perfectly distinct. There is a
similarity only in this respect between the Ladies of the Holy
Sacrament and the Bernardines of Martin Verga, even as there
is a similitude, in the study and the glorification of all the
mysteries relative to the infancy, the life and the death of Jesus
Christ, and to the Virgin, between two orders widely separated
and occasionally inimical; the Oratory of Italy, established at
Florence by Philip di Neri, and the Oratory of France, established
at Paris by Pierre de Berulle. The Oratory of Paris claims the
precedence, Philip di Neri being only a saint, and Berulle being
a cardinal.

Let us return to the severe Spanish rules of Martin Verga.

The Bernardine-Benedictines of this Obedience abstain from

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Les Miserables

meat all the year round, fast during Lent and many other days
peculiar to them, rise out of their first sleep at one o'clock in the
morning to read their breviary and chant matins until three,
sleep in coarse woollen sheets at all seasons and upon straw, use
no baths, never light any fire, scourge themselves every Friday,
observe the rule of silence, speak to one another only at re-
creations, which are very short, and wear haircloth chemises for
six months, from the fourteenth of September, the Exaltation
of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modera-
tion— the rules say all the year; but this haircloth chemise,
insupportable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and
nervous spasms. It became necessary to limit its use. Even
with this mitigation, after the fourteenth of September, when the
nuns put on this chemise, they have three or four days of fever.
Obedience, poverty, chastity, continuance in cloister; such are
their vows, rendered much more difficult of fulfilment by the
rules.

The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are
called vocal mothers, because they have a voice in the chapter.
A prioress can be re-elected but twice, which fixes the longest
possible reign of a prioress at nine years.

They never see the officiating priest, who is always concealed
from them by a woollen curtain nine feet high. During sermon,
when the preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veil over their
face ; they must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the
ground and their head bowed down. But one man can enter
the convent, the archbishop of the diocese.

There is indeed one other, the gardener; but he is always an
old man, and in order that he may be perpetually alone in the
garden and that the nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell
is attached to his knee.

They are subject to the prioress with an absolute and passive
submission. It is canonical subjection in all its abnegation. As
at the voice of Christ, ut voci Christi, at a nod, at the first signal,
ad nutum, ad primum signum, promptly, with pleasure, with
perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, prompte, hilariter,
•per sever anter, et cceca quddam obedientid, like the file in the work-
man's hands, quasi limam in manibus, fabri, forbidden to read or
write without express permission, legere vel scribere non addiscerit
sine expressd superioris licentid.

Each one of them in turn performed what they call the repara-
tion. The Reparation is prayer for all sins, for all faults, foi all
disorders, for all violations, for all iniquities, for all the crimes

Cosette 465

which are committed upon the earth. During twelve consecu-
tive hours, from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock
in the morning, or from four o'clock in the morning till four
o'clock in the afternoon, the sister who performs the reparation
remains on her knees upon the stone before the holy sacrament,
her hands clasped and a rope around her neck. When fatigue
becomes insupportable, she prostrates herself, her face against
the marble and her arms crossed ; this is all her relief. In this
attitude, she prays for all the guilty in the universe. This is
grand even to sublimity.

As this act is performed before a post on the top of which
a taper is burning, they say indiscriminately, to perform the
reparation or to be at the post. The nuns even prefer, from
humility, this latter expression, which involves an idea of
punishment and of abasement.

The performance of the reparation is a process in which the
whole soul is absorbed. The sister at the post would not turn
were a thunderbolt to fall behind her.

Moreover, there is always a nun on her knees before the holy
sacrament. They remain for an hour. They are relieved like
soldiers standing sentry. That is the Perpetual Adoration.

The prioresses and the mothers almost always have names of
peculiar solemnity, recalling not the saints and the martyrs, but
moments in the life of Christ, like Mother Nativity, Mother
Conception, Mother Presentation, Mother Passion. The names
of saints, however, are not prohibited.

When you see them, you see only their mouth.

They all have yellow teeth. Never did a tooth-brush enter
the convent. To brush the teeth is the top round of a ladder, the
bottom round of which is — to lose the soul.

They never say my or mine. They have nothing of their own,
and must cherish nothing. They say our of everything; thus:
our veil, our chaplet; if they speak of their chemise, they say
our chemise. Sometimes they become attached to some little
object, to a prayer-book, a relic, or a sacred medal. As soon as
they perceive that they are beginning to cherish this object,
they must give it up. They remember the reply of Saint Theresa,
to whom a great lady, at the moment of entering her order, said :
permit me, mother, to send for a holy Bible which I cherish very
much. " Ah ! you cherish something I In that case, do not
enter our house.1'

None are allowed to shut themselves up, and to have a home,
a room. They live in open cells. When they meet one another,

466 Les Miserables

one says : Praise and adoration to the most holy sacrament of the
altar I The other responds : Forever. The same ceremony when
one knocks at another's door. Hardly is the door touched
when a gentle voice is heard from the other side hastily saying,
Forever. Like all rituals, this becomes mechanical from habit;
and one sometimes says forever before the other has had time to
say, what is indeed rather lengthy, Praise and adoration to the
most holy sacrament of the altar I

Among the Visitandines, the one who comes in says: Ave
Maria, and the one to whose cell she comes says : Gratia plena.
This is their good day, which is, in fact, " graceful."

At each hour of the day, three supplementary strokes sound
from the bell of the convent church. At this signal, prioress,
mothers, professed nuns, sister servants, novices, postulants, all
break off from what they are saying, doing, or thinking, and say
at once, if it is five o'clock, for example: At five o'clock and at
all times, praise and adoration to the most holy sacrament of the
altar! If it is eight o'clock: At eight and at all times, etc., and
so on, according to whatever hour it may be.

This custom, which is intended to interrupt the thoughts, and
to lead them back constantly to God, exists in many communities ;
the formula only varies. Thus, at the Infant Jesus, they say:
At the present hour and at all hours may the love of Jesus enkindle
my heart I

The Benedictine-Bernardines of Martin Verga, cloistered
fifty years ago in the Petit Picpus, chant the offices in a grave
psalmody, pure plain-chant, and always in a loud voice for the
whole duration of the office. Wherever there is an asterisk in
the missal, they make a pause and say in a low tone : Jesus-Mary-
Joseph. For the office for the dead, they take so low a pitch,
that it is difficult for female voices to reach it. The effect is
thrilling and tragical.

Those of the Petit Picpus had had a vault made under their
high altar for the burial of their community. The government,
as they call it, does not permit corpses to be deposited in this
vault. They therefore were taken from the convent when they
died. This was an affliction to them, and horrified them as if
it were a violation.

They had obtained — small consolation — the privilege of being
buried at a special hour and in a special place in the old Vaugirard
Cemetery, which was located in ground formerly belonging to
the community.

On Thursday these nuns heard high mass, vespers, and all the

Cosette 467

offices the same as on Sunday. They moreover scrupulously
observed all the little feast days, unknown to the people of the
world, of which the church was formerly lavish in France, and is
still lavish in Spain and Italy. Their attendance at chapel is
interminable. As to the number and duration of their prayers,
we cannot give a better idea than by quoting the frank words of
one of themselves : The prayers of the postulants are frightful, the
prayers of the novices worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns
still worse.

Once a week the chapter assembles; the prioress presides,
the mothers attend. Each sister comes in her turn, kneels
upon the stone, and confesses aloud, before all, the faults and
sins which she has committed during the week. The mothers
consult together after each confession, and announce the penalty
aloud.

In addition to open confession, for which they reserve all
serious faults, they have for venial faults what they call the
coulpe. To perform the coulpe is to prostrate yourself on your
face during the office, before the prioress until she, who is never
spoken of except as our mother, indicates to the sufferer, by a
gentle rap upon the side of her stall, that she may rise. The
coulpe is performed for very petty things ; a glass broken, a veil
torn, an involuntary delay of a few seconds at an office, a false
note in church, etc., — these are enough for the coulpe. The
coulpe is entirely spontaneous; it is the culpable herself (this
word is here etymologically in its place) who judges herself and
who inflicts it upon herself. On feast-days and Sundays there are
four chorister mothers who sing the offices before a large desk
with four music stands. One day a mother chorister intoned a
psalm which commenced by Ecce, and, instead of Ecce, she pro-
nounced in a loud voice these three notes : ut, si, sol ; for this
absence of mind she underwent a coulpe which lasted through
the whole office. What rendered the fault peculiarly enormous
was, that the chapter laughed.

When a nun is called to the locutory, be it even the prioress,
she drops her veil, it will be remembered, in such a way as to
show nothing but her mouth.

The prioress alone can communicate with strangers. The
others can see only their immediate family, and that very rarely.
If by chance persons from without present themselves to see a
nun whom they have known or loved in the world, a formal
negotiation is necessary. If it be a woman, permission may be
sometimes accorded; the nun comes and is spoken to through

468 Les Miserables

the shutters, which are never opened except for a mother or
sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is always refused
to men.

Such are the rules of St. Benedict, rendered more severe by
Martin Verga.

These nuns are not joyous, rosy, and cheerful, as are often the
daughters of other orders. They are pale and serious. Between
1825 and 1830 three became insane.

Ill

SEVERITIES

A POSTULANCY of at least two years is required, often four; a
novitiate of four years. It is rare that the final vows can be
pronounced under twenty-three or twenty-four years. The
Bernardine-Benedictines of Martin Verga admit no widows into
their order.

They subject themselves in their cells to many unknown self-
mortifications of which they must never speak.

The day on which a novice makes her profession she is dressed
in her finest attire, with her head decked with white roses, and
her hair glossy and curled ; then she prostrates herself ; a great
black veil is spread over her, and the office for the dead is chanted.
The nuns then divide into two files, one file passes near her,
saying in plaintive accents : Our sister is dead, and the other file
responds in ringing tones : living in Jesus Christ 1

At the period to which this history relates, a boarding-school
was attached to the convent. A school of noble young girls, for
the most part rich, among whom were noticeable Mesdemoiselles
De Sainte Aulaire and De Belissen, and an English girl bearing
the illustrious Catholic name of Talbot. These young girls,
reared by these nuns between four walls, grew up in horror of
the world and of the age. One of them said to us one day: to
see the pavement of the street made me shiver from head to foot.
They were dressed in blue with a white cap, and a Holy Spirit, in
silver or copper gilt, upon their breast. On certain grand feast-
days, particularly on St. Martha's day, they were allowed, as
a high favour and a supreme pleasure, to dress as nuns and
perform the offices and the ritual of St. Benedict for a whole day.
At first the professed nuns lent them their black garments.
That appeared profane, and the prioress forbade it. This loan
was permitted only to novices. It is remarkable that these

Cosetre 469

representations, undoubtedly tolerated and encouraged in the
convent by a secret spirit of proselytism, and to give these
children some foretaste of the holy dress, were a real pleasure
and a genuine recreation for the scholars. They simply amused
themselves. // was new ; it was a change. Candid reasons of
childhood, which do not succeed, however, in making us,
mundane people, comprehend the felicity of holding a holy
sprinkler in the hand, and remaining standing entire hours
singing in quartette before a desk.

The pupils, austerities excepted, conformed to all the ritual
of the convent. There are young women who, returned to the
world, and after several years of marriage, have not yet succeeded
in breaking off the habit of saying hastily, whenever there is a
knock at the door: Forever I Like the nuns, the boarders saw
their relatives only in the loc<|:ory. Even their mothers were
not permitted to embrace them. Strictness upon this point was
carried to the following extent: One day a young girl was visited
by her mother accompanied by a little sister three years old.
The young girl wept, for she wished very much to kiss her sister.
Impossible. She begged that the child should at least be per-
mitted to pass her little hand through the bars that she might
kiss it. This was refused almost with indignation.

GAIETIES

THESE young girls have none the less filled this solemn house
with charming reminiscences.

At certain hours, childhood sparkled in this cloister. The
hour of recreation struck. A door turned upon its hinges. The
birds said good ! here are the children ! An irruption of youth
inundated this garden, which was cut by walks in the form of a
cross, like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads, frank eyes
full of cheerful light, auroras of all sorts scattered through this
darkness. After the chants, the bell-ringing, the knells, and the
offices, all at once this hum of little girls burst forth sweeter than
the hum of bees. The hive of joy opened, and each one brought
her honey. They played, they called to one another, they
formed groups, they ran; pretty little white teeth chattered in
the corners; veils from a distance watched over the laughter,
shadows spying the sunshine ; but what matter ! They sparkled
and they laughed. These four dismal walls had their moments

47° Les Miserables

of bewilderment. They too shared, dimly lighted up by the
reflection of so much joy, in this sweet and swarming whirl. It
was like a shower of roses upon this mourning. The young
girls frolicked under the eyes of the nuns ; the gaze of sinlessness
does not disturb innocence. Thanks to these children, among
so many hours of austerity, there was one hour of artlessness.
The little girls skipped, the larger ones danced. In this cloister,
play was mingled with heaven. Nothing was so transporting
and superb, as all these fresh, blooming souls. Homer might
have laughed there with Perrault, and there were, in this
dark garden, enough of youth, health, murmurs, cries, uproar,
pleasure and happiness, to smooth the wrinkles from off all
grandames, those of the epic as well as the tale, those of the
throne as well as the hut, from Hecuba to Mother Goose.

In this house, more than anywhere else, perhaps, have been
heard these children's sayings, which have so much grace, and
which make one laugh with a laugh full of thought. It was
within these four forbidding walls that a child of five years ex-
claimed one day : " Mother, a great girl has just told me that I have
only nine years and ten montlis more to stay here. How glad 1 am I "

Here, also, that this memorable dialogue occurred :

A MOTHER. — " What are you crying for, my child ? "

THE CHILD (six years old), sobbing. — " I told Alice I knew my
French history. She says I don't know it, and I do know it."

ALICE, larger (nine years). — " No, she doesn't know it."

THE MOTHER. — " How is that, my child ? "

ALICE. — " She told me to open the book anywhere and ask
her any question there was in the book, and she could answer it."

"Well?"

" She didn't answer it."

" Let us see. What did you ask her ?

" I opened the book anywhere, just as she said, and I asked
her the first question I found."

" And what was the question ? "

" It was: What happened next f "

Here this profound observation was made about a rather
dainty parrot, which belonged to a lady boarder:

" Isn't she genteel I she picks off the top of her tart, like a lady"

From one of the tiles of the cloister, the following confession
was picked up, written beforehand, so as not to be forgotten, by
a little sinner seven years old.

" Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.

" Father, I accuse myself of having been adulterous.

Cosette 471

" Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes towards
the gentlemen."

Upon one of the grassy banks of this garden, the following
story was improvised by a rosy mouth six years old, and listened
to by blue eyes four and five years old :

" There were three little chickens who lived in a country
where there were a good many flowers. They picked the flowers,
and they put them in their pockets. After that, they picked the
leaves, and they put them in their playthings. There was a
wolf in the country, and there was a good many woods; and the
wolf was in the woods; and he ate up the little chickens."

And again, this other poem :

" There was a blow with a stick.

" It was Punchinello who struck the cat.

" That didn't do him any good; it did her harm.

" Then a lady put Punchinello in prison."

There, also, these sweet and heartrending words were said by
a little foundling that the convent was rearing through charity.
She heard the others talking about their mothers, and she
murmured in her little place :

" For my part, my mother was not there when I was born.1"

There was a fat portress, who was always to be seen hurrying
about the corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name
was Sister Agatha. The great big girls, — over ten, — called her
Agathodes.

The refectory, a large oblong room, which received light only
from a cloister window with a fluted arch opening on a level
with the garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children said
— full of beasts. All the surrounding places furnished it their
contingents of insects. Each of its four corners had received,
in the language of the pupils, a peculiar and expressive name.
There was the Spiders' corner, the Caterpillars' corner, the
Woodlice's corner, and the Crickets' corner. The crickets'
corner was near the kitchen, and was highly esteemed. It was
not so cold as the others. From the refectory the names had
passed to the school-room, and served to distinguish there, as
at the old Mazarin College, four nations. Each pupil belonged
to one of these four nations according to the corner of the
refectory in which she sat at meals. One day, the archbishop,
making his pastoral visit, saw enter the class which he was
passing, a pretty little blushing girl with beautiful fair hair;
and he asked another scholar, a charming fresh-cheeked brunette,
who was near him:

47 2 Les Miserables

" What is this little girl? "

' She is a spider, monseignetir."

' Pshaw ! — and this other one ? "

' She is a cricket."

' And that one ? "

' She is a caterpillar."

' Indeed I And what are you ? "

' I am a wood-louse, monseigneur."

Every house of this kind has its peculiarities. At the com-
mencement of this century, Ecouen was one of those serene and
graceful places where, in a shade which was almost august, the
childhood of young girls was passed. At Ecouen, by way of
rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, they made a dis-
tinction between the virgins and the florists. There were also
" the canopies," and the " censers," the former carrying the
cords of the canopy, the latter swinging censers before the Holy
Sacrament. The flowers returned of right to the florists. Four
" virgins " walked at the head of the procession. On the mom-
ing of the great day, it was not uncommon to hear the question
in the dormitory.
" Who is a virgin ? "

Madame Campan relates this saying of a " little girl " seven
years old to a " great girl " of sixteen who took the head of
the procession, while she, the little one, remained in the rear.
" You're a virgin, you are; but I am not."

DISTRACTIONS

ABOVE the door of the refectory was written in large black
letters this prayer, which was called the white Paternoster, and
which possessed the virtue of leading people straight in to
Paradise :

" Little white paternoster, which God made, which God said,
which God laid in Paradise. At night, on going to bed, I finded
(sic) three angels lying on my bed, one at the foot, two at the
head, the good Virgin Mary in the middle, who to me said that
I should went to bed, and nothing suspected. The good God
is my father, the Holy Virgin is my mother, the three apostles
are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The chemise
in which God was born, my body is enveloped in; the cross of
Saint Marguerite on my breast is writ; Madame the Virgin goes

Cosette

473

away through the fields, weeping for God, meeted Monsieur
Saint John. Monsieur Saint John, where do you come from?
I come from Ave Solus. You have not seen the good God, have
you ? He is on the tree of the cross, his feet hanging, his hands
nailing, a little hat of white thorns upon his head. Whoever
shall say this three times at night, three times in the morning,
will win Paradise in the end."

In 1827, this characteristic orison had disappeared from the
wall under a triple layer of paper. It is fading away to this
hour in the memory of some young girls of that day, old ladies
now.

A large crucifix hanging upon the wall completed the decora-
tion of this refectory, the only door of which, as we believe we
have said, opened upon the garden. Two narrow tables, at the
sides of each of which were two wooden benches, extended along
the refectory in parallel lines from one end to the other. The
walls were white, and the tables black; these two mourning
colours are the only variety in convents. The meals were
coarse, and the diet of even the children strict. A single plate,
meat and vegetables together, or salt fish, constituted the fare.
This brief bill of fare was, however, an exception, reserved for
the scholars alone. The children ate in silence, under the watch-
ful eyes of the mother for the week, who, from time to time, if a
fly ventured to hum or to buzz contrary to rule, noisily opened
and shut a wooden book. This silence was seasoned with the
Lives of the Saints, read in a loud voice from a little reading
desk placed at the foot of a crucifix. The reader was a large
pupil, selected for the week. There were placed at intervals
along the bare table, glazed earthen bowls, in which each pupil
washed her cup and dish herself, and sometimes threw refuse
bits, tough meat or tainted fish; this was punished. These
bowls were called water basins.

A child who broke the silence made a " cross with her tongue."
Where ? On the floor. She licked the tiles. Dust, that end of
all joys, was made to chastise these poor little rosebuds, when
guilty of prattling.

There was a book in the convent, which is the only copy ever
printed, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the Rules of
St. Benedict ; arcana into which no profane eye must penetrate.
Nemo regulas, sen constitutions nostras, externis communicabit.

The scholars succeeded one day in purloining this book, and
began to read it eagerly, a reading often interrupted by fears of
being caught, which made them close the volume very suddenly.

474 Les Miserables

But from this great risk they derived small pleasure. A few
unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys, were what
they thought " most interesting."

They played in one walk of the garden, along which were a
few puny fruit trees. In spite of the close watch and the
severity of the punishments, when the wind had shaken the
trees, they sometimes succeeded in furtively picking up a green
apple, a half-rotten apricot, or a worm-eaten pear. But I will
let a letter speak, which I have at hand ; a letter written twenty-
five years ago by a former pupil, now Madame the Duchess of

, one of the most elegant women of Paris. I quote verbatim :

— " We hide our pear or our apple as we can. When we go up
to spread the covers on our beds before supper, we put them
under our pillows, and at night eat them in bed, and when we
cannot do that, we eat them in the closets." This was one of
their most vivid pleasures.

At another time, also on the occasion of a visit of the arch-
bishop to the convent, one of the young girls, Mademoiselle
Bouchard, a descendant of the Montmorencies, wagered that
she would ask leave of absence for a day, a dreadful thing in a
community so austere. The wager was accepted, but no one
of those who took it believed she would dare do it. When the
opportunity came, as the archbishop was passing before the
scholars, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable dismay
of her companions, left the ranks, and said : " Monseigneur,
leave of absence for a day." Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall
and fresh-looking, with the prettiest little rosy face in the world.
M. De Quelen smiled and said: " How now, my dear child, leave
of absence for a day I Three days, if you like. I grant you three
days" The prioress could do nothing; the archbishop had
spoken. A scandal to the convent, but a joyful thing for the
school. Imagine the effect.

This rigid cloister was not, however, so well walled in, that
the life of the passions of the outside world, that drama, that
romance even, did not penetrate it. To prove this, we will
merely state briefly an actual, incontestable fact, which, how-
ever, has in itself no relation to our story, not being attached to
it even by a thread. We mention this merely to complete the
picture of the convent in the mind of the reader.

There was about that time, then, in the convent, a mysterious
person, not a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who
was called Madame Albertine. Nothing was known of her, except
that she was insane, and that in the world she was supposed

Cosette 475

to be dead. There were, it was said, involved in her story, some
pecuniary arrangements necessary for a great marriage.

This woman, hardly thirty years old, a beautiful brunette,
stared wildly with her large black eyes. Was she looking at
anything? It was doubtful. She glided along rather than
walked; she never spoke; it was not quite certain that she
breathed. Her nostrils were as thin and livid as if she had
heaved her last sigh. To touch her hand was like touching
snow. She had a strange spectral grace. Wherever she came,
all were cold. One day, a sister seeing her pass, said to another,
" She passes for dead." " Perhaps she is," answered the other.

Many stories were told about Madame Albertine. She was
the eternal subject of curiosity of the boarders. There was in
the chapel a gallery, which was called I'CEil-de-Bceuf. In this
gallery, which had only a circular opening, an oeil-de-bceuf ,
Madame Albertine attended the offices. She was usually alone
there, because from this gallery, which was elevated, the
preacher or the officiating priest could be seen, which was for-
bidden to the nuns. One day, the pulpit was occupied by a
young priest of high rank, the Duke de Rohan, peer of France,
who was an officer of the Mousquetaires Rouges in 1815, when
he was Prince de Le"on, and who died afterwards in 1830, a
cardinal, and Archbishop of Besan^on. This was the first time
that M. de Rohan had preached in the convent of the Petit
Picpus. Madame Albertine ordinarily attended the sermons
and the- offices with perfect calmness and complete silence. On
that day, as soon as she saw M. de Rohan, she half rose, and, in
all the stillness of the chapel, exclaimed: " W hat 1 Auguste ? "
The whole community were astounded, and turned their heads;
the preacher raised his eyes, but Madame Albertine had fallen
back into her motionless silence. A breath from the world
without, a glimmer of life, had passed for a moment over that
dead and icy form, then all had vanished, and the lunatic had
again become a corpse.

These two words, however, set everybody in the convent
who could speak to chattering. How many things there were
in that What 1 Auguste 1 How many revelations! M. de
Rohan's name was, in fact, Auguste. It was clear that Madame
Albertine came from the highest society, since she knew M. de
Rohan; that she had occupied a high position herself, since she
spoke of so great a noble so familiarly; and that she had some
connection with him, of relationship perhaps, but beyond all
doubt very intimate, since she knew his " pet name."

476

Les Miserables

Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de
Serent, often visited the community, to which they doubtless
were admitted by virtue of the privilege of Magnates mulieres,
greatly to the terror of the school. When the two old ladies
passed, all the poor young girls trembled and lowered their eyes.
M. de Rohan was, moreover, without knowing it, the object
of the attention of the school-girls. He had just at that time
been made, while waiting for the episcopacy, grand-vicar of the
Archbishop of Paris. He was in the habit of coming rather
frequently to chant the offices in the chapel of the nuns of
the Petit Picpus. None of the young recluses could see him, on
account of the serge curtain, but he had a gentle, penetrating
voice, which they came to recognise and distinguish. He had
been a mousquetaire; and then he was said to be very agreeable,
with beautiful chestnut hair, which he wore in curls, and a large
girdle of magnificent moire, while his black cassock was of the
most elegant cut in the world. All these girlish imaginations
were very much occupied with him.

No sound from without penetrated the convent. There was,
however, one year when the sound of a flute was heard. This
was an event, and the pupils of the time remember it yet.

It was a flute on which somebody in the neighbourhood was
playing. This flute always played the same air, an air long
since forgotten: My Zetulba, come reign o'er my soul, and they
heard it two or three times a-day. The young girls passed
hours in listening, the mothers were distracted, heads grew
giddy, punishments were exhausted. This lasted for several
months. The pupils were all more or less in love with the un-
known musician. Each one imagined herself Zetulba. The
sound of the flute came from the direction of the Rue Droit Mur;
they would have given everything, sacrificed everything, dared
everything to see, were it only for a second, to catch a glimpse
of the " young man " who played so deliciously on that flute,
and who, without suspecting it, was playing at the same time
upon all their hearts. There were some who escaped by a back
door, and climbed up to the third story on the Rue Droit Mur,
incurring days of suffering in the endeavour to see him. Impos-
sible. One went so far as to reach her arm above her head
through the grate and wave her white handkerchief. Two were
bolder still. They found means to climb to the top of a roof,
and risking themselves there, they finally succeeded in seeing
the " young man." He was an old gentleman of the emigration,
ruined and blind, who was playing upon the flute in his garret
to while awav the time.

Cosette 477

THE LITTLE CONVENT

THERE were in this inclosure of the Petit Picpus three perfectly
distinct buildings, the Great Convent, in which the nuns lived,
the school building, in which the pupils lodged, and finally what
was called the Little Convent. This was a detached building
with a garden, in which dwelt in common many old nuns of
various orders, remnants of cloisters destroyed by the revolu-
tion; a gathering of all shades, black, grey, and white, from all
the communities and of all the varieties possible; what might be
called, if such a coupling of names were not disrespectful, a sort
of motley convent.

From the time of the empire, all these poor scattered and
desolate maidens had been permitted to take shelter under the
wings of the Benedictine-Bernardines. The government made
them a small allowance; the ladies of the Petit Picpus had
received them with eagerness. It was a grotesque mixture.
Each followed her own rules. The school-girls were sometimes
permitted, as a great recreation, to make them a visit; so that
these young memories have retained among others a reminis-
cence of holy Mother Bazile, of holy Mother Scholastique, and
of Mother Jacob.

One of these refugees found herself again almost in her own
home. She was a nun of Sainte Aure, the only one of her order
who survived. The ancient convent of the Ladies of Sainte
Aure occupied at the beginning of the eighteenth century this
same house of the Petit Picpus which afterwards belonged to the
Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy maiden, too poor to
wear the magnificent dress of her order, which was a white robe
with a scarlet scapular, had piously clothed a little image with it,
which she showed complacently, and which at her death she
bequeathed to the house. In 1824, there remained of this order
only one nun ; to-day there remains only a doll.

In addition to these worthy mothers, a few old women of
fashion had obtained permissio'n of the prioress, as had Madame
Albertine, to retire into the Little Convent. Among the
number were Madame de Beaufort, d'Hautpoul, and Madame
la Marquise Dufresne. Another was known in the convent only
by the horrible noise she made in blowing her nose. The pupils
called her Racketini.

478

Les Miserables

About 1820 or 1821, Madame de Genlis, who at that time was
editing a little magazine called the Intrepide, asked permission
to occupy a room at the convent of the Petit Picpus. Monsieur
the Duke of Orleans recommended her. A buzzing in the hive ;
the mothers were all in a tremor; Madame de Genlis had
written romances; but she declared that she was the first to
detest them, and then she had arrived at her phase of fierce
devotion. God aiding, and the prince also, she entered.

She went away at the end of six or eight months, giving as a
reason that the garden had no shade. The nuns were in rap-
tures. Although very old, she still played on the harp, and
that very well.

On going away, she left her mark on her cell. Madame de
Genlis was superstitious and fond of Latin. These two terms
give a very good outline of her. There could still be seen a few
years ago, pasted up in a little closet in her cell, in which she
locked up her money and jewellery, these five Latin lines written
in her hand with red ink upon yellow paper, and which, in her
opinion, possessed the virtue of frightening away thieves:

Imparibus mentis pendent tria corpora ramis:
Dismas et Gesmas, media est divina potestas;
Alta petit Dismas, infelix, infima, Gesmas;
Nos et res nostras conservet summa potestas,
Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas.

These lines in Latin of the Sixth Century, raise the question
as to whether the names of the two thieves of Calvary were, as
is commonly believed, Dimas and Gestas, or Dismas and Gesmas.
The latter orthography would make against the pretensions
which the Vicomte de Gestas put forth, in the last century, to
be a descendant of the unrepentant thief. The convenient
virtue attributed to these lines was, moreover, an article of
faith in the order of the Hospitallers.

The church of the convent, which was built in such a manner
as to separate as much as possible the Great Convent from the
school, was, of course, common to the school, the Great Convent
and the Little Convent. The public even were admitted there
by a beggarly entrance opening from the street. But every-
thing was arranged in such a way that none of the inmates of
the cloister could see a face from without. Imagine a church,
the choir of which should be seized by a gigantic hand, and bent
round in such a way as to form, not, as in ordinary churches, a
prolongation behind the altar, but a sort of room or obscure
cavern at the right of the priest; imagine this room closed by

Cosette

479

the curtain seven feet high of which we have already spoken;
heap together in the shade of this curtain, on wooden stalls, the
nuns of the choir at the left, the pupils at the right, the sister
servants and the novices in the rear, and you will have some
idea of the nuns of the Petit Picpus, attending divine service.
This cavern, which was called the choir, communicated with the
cloister by a narrow passage. The church received light from
the garden. When the nuns were attending offices in which their
rules commanded silence, the public was advised of their pre-
sence only by the sound of the rising and falling stall-seats.

VII

A FEW OUTLINES IN THIS SHADE

DURING the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the
prioress of the Petit Picpus was Mademoiselle De Blemeur,
whose religious name was Mother Innocent. She was of the
family of Marguerite De Blemeur, author of the Lives of the
Saints of the Order of St. Benedict. She had been re-elected. A
woman of about sixty, short, fat, " chanting like a cracked
kettle," says the letter from which we have already quoted; but
an excellent woman, the only one who was cheerful in the whole
convent, and on that account adored.

Mother Innocent resembled her ancestor Marguerite, the
Dacier of the Order. She was well-read, erudite, learned, skilful,
curious in history, stuffed with Latin, crammed with Greek, full
of Hebrew, and rather a monk than a nun.

The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun almost blind, Mother
Cineres.

The most esteemed among the mothers were Mother Sainte
Honorine, the treasurer, Mother Sainte Gertrude, first mistress
of the novices, Mother Sainte Ange, second mistress, Mother
Annunciation, sacristan, Mother Sainte Augustin, nurse, the
only nun in the convent who was ill-natured; then Mother
Sainte Mechthilde (Mile. Gauvain), quite young and having a
wonderful voice; Mother Des Anges (Mile. Drouet), who had
been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu and in the convent of the
Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother Sainte Joseph
(Mile, de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte Adelaide (Mile. D'Auverney),
Mother Mercy (Mile, de Cifuentes), who could not endure the
austerities, Mother Compassion (Mile. De la Miltiere, received
at sixty in spite of the rules, very rich); Mother Providence

480

Les Miserables

(Mile, de Laudiniere), Mother Presentation (Mile, de Siguenza),
who was piioress in 1847; finally, Mother Sainte Celigne (sister
of the sculptor Ceracchi), since insane, Mother Sainte Chantal
(Mile, de Suzon), since insane.

There was still among the prettiest a charming girl of twenty-
three, from the Isle of Bourbon, a descendant of the Chevalier
Roze, who was called in the world Mademoiselle Roze, and who
called herself Mother Assumption.

Mother Sainte Mechthilde, who had charge of the singing and
the choir, gladly availed herself of the pupils. She usually took
a complete gamut of them, that is to say, seven, from ten years
old to sixteen inclusive, of graduated voice and stature, and had
them sing, standing in a row, ranged according to their age from
the smallest to the largest. This presented to the sight some-
thing like a harp of young girls, a sort of living pipe of Pan made
of angels.

Those of the servant sisters whom the pupils liked best were
Sister Sainte Euphrasie, Sister Sainte Marguerite, Sister Sainte
Marthe, who was in her dotage, and Sister Sainte Michael, whose
long nose made them laugh.

All these women were gentle to all these children. The nuns
were severe only to themselves. The only fires were in the
school building, and the fare, compared with that of the convent,
was choice. Besides that, they received a thousand little atten-
tions. Only when a child passed near a nun and spoke to her,
the nun never answered.

This rule of silence had had this effect that, in the whole
convent, speech was withdrawn from human creatures and
given to inanimate objects. Sometimes it was the church-bell
that spoke, sometimes the gardener's. A very sonorous bell,
placed beside the portress and which was heard all over the
house, indicated by its variations, which were a kind of acoustic
telegraph, all the acts of material life to be performed, and
called to the locutory, if need were, this or that inhabitant of
the house. Each person and each thing had its special ring.
The prioress had one and one; the sub-prioress one and two.
Six-five announced the recitation, so that the pupils never said
going to recitation, but going to six-five. Four-four was
Madame de Genlis' signal. It was heard very often. // is the
four deuce, said the uncharitable. Nineteen strokes announced
a great event. It was the opening of the close door, a fearful
iron plate bristling with bolts which turned upon its hinges only
before the archbishop.

Cosette 48 1

He and the gardener excepted, as we have said, no man
entered the convent. The pupils saw two others; one, the
almoner, the Abbe Banes, old and ugly, whom they had the
privilege of contemplating through a grate in the choir; the
other, the drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter from
which we have already quoted a few lines, calls M. Anciot, and
describes as a horrid old hunchback.

We see that all the men were select

Such was this rare house.

VIII

POST CORDA LAPIDES

AFTER sketching its moral features, it may not be useless to
point out in a few words its material configuration. The reader
has already some idea of it.

The convent of the Petit Picpus Saint Antoine almost entirely
filled the large trapezium which was formed by the intersection
of the Rue Polonceau, the Rue Droit Mur, the Petite Rue Picpus,
and the built-up alley called in the old plans Rue Aumarais.
These four streets surrounded this trapezium like a ditch. The
convent was composed of several buildings and a garden. The
principal building, taken as a whole, was an aggregation of
hybrid constructions which, in a bird's-eye view, presented with
considerable accuracy the form of a gibbet laid down on the
ground.

The long arm of the gibbet extended along the whole portion
of the Rue Droit Mur comprised between the Petite Rue Picpus
and the Rue Polonceau; the short arm was a high, grey, severe,
grated facade which overlooked the Petite Rue Picpus; the
porte cochere, No. 62, marked the end of it. Towards the middle
of this facade, the dust and ashes had whitened an old low arched
door where the spiders made their webs, and which was opened
only for an hour or two on Sunday and on the rare occasions
when the corpse of a nun was taken out of the convent. It was
the public entrance of the church. The elbow of the gibbet
was a square hall which served as pantry, and which the nuns
called the expense. In the long arm were the cells of the mothers,
sisters and novices. In the short arm were the kitchens, the
refectory, lined with cells, and the church. Between the door,
No. 62, and the corner of the closed alley Aumarais, was the
school, which could not be seen from the outside. The rest of
I Q

482

Les Miserables

the trapezium formed the garden, which was much lower than
the level of the Rue Polonceau, so that the walls were consider-
ably higher on the inside than on the outside. The garden,
which was slightly convex, had in the centre, on the top of a
knoll, a beautiful fir, pointed and conical, from which parted,
as from the centre of a buckler, four broad walks, and, arranged
two by two between the broad walks, eight narrow ones, so that,
if the inclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the
walks would have resembled a cross placed over a wheel. The
walks, all extending to the very irregular walls of the garden,
were of unequal length. They were bordered with gooseberry
bushes. At the further end of the garden a row of large poplars
extended from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the
corner of the Rue Droit Mur, to the house of the Little Convent,
which was at the corner of the alley Aumarais. Before the Little
Convent, was what was called the Little Garden. Add to this
outline a courtyard, all manner of angles made by detached
buildings, prison walls, no prospect and no neighbourhood, but
the long black line of roofs which ran along the other side of the
Rue Polonceau, and you can form a complete image of what was,
forty-five years ago, the houses of the Bernardines of the Petit
Picpus. This holy house had been built on the exact site of a
famous tennis-court, which existed from the fourteenth to the
sixteenth century, and which was called the court of the eleven
thousand devils.

All these streets, moreover, were among the most ancient in
Paris. These names, Droit Mur and Aumarais, are very old ;
the streets which bear them are much older still. The alley
Aumarais was called the alley Maugout; the Rue Droit Mur
was called the Rue des Eglantiers, for God opened the flowers
before man cut stone.

A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMP

SINCE we are dealing with the details of what was formerly the
convent of the Petit Picpus, and have dared to open a window
upon that secluded asylum, the reader will pardon us another
little digression, foreign to the object of this book, but charac-
teristic and useful, as it teaches us that the cloister itself has
its original characters.

There was in the Little Convent a centenarian who came from

Cosette 483

the Abbey of Fontevrault. Before the revolution she had even
been in society. She talked much of M. de Miromesnil, keeper
of the seals under Louis XVI., and of the lady of a President
Duplat whom she had known very well. It was her pleasure
and her vanity to bring forward these names on all occasions.
She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault, that it was like
a city, and that there were streets within the convent.

She spoke with a Picardy accent which delighted the pupils.
Every year she solemnly renewed her vows, and, at the moment
of taking the oath, she would say to the priest: Monseigneur St.
Francis gave it to Monseigneur St. Julian, Monseigneur St.
Julian gave it to Monseigneur St. Eusebius, Monseigneur St.
Eusebius gave it to Monseigneur St. Procopius, etc., etc.; so I
give it to you, my father. And the pupils would laugh, not in
their sleeves, but in their veils, joyous little stifled laughs which
made the mothers frown.

At one time, the centenarian was telling stories. She said that
in her youth the Bernardins did not yield the precedence to the
Mousquetaires. It was a century which was speaking, but it
was the eighteenth century. She told of the custom in Cham-
pagne and Burgundy before the revolution, of the four wines.
When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke
or peer, passed through a city of Burgundy or Champagne, the
corporation of the city waited on him, delivered an address,
and presented him with four silver goblets in which were four
different wines. Upon the first goblet he read this inscription :
Monkey wine, upon the second: lion wine, upon the third:
sheep wine, upon the fourth : swine wine. These four inscriptions
expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness : the first,
that which enlivens ; the second, that which irritates; the third,
that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalises.

She had in a closet, under key, a mysterious object, which she
cherished very highly. The rules of Fontevrault did not pro-
hibit it. She would not show this object to anybody. She shut
herself up, which her rules permitted, and hid herself whenever
she wished to look at it. If she heard a step in the hall, she shut
the closet as quick as she could with her old hands. As soon as
anybody spoke to her about this, she was silent, although she
was so fond of talking. The most curious were foiled by her
silence, and the most persevering by her obstinacy. Tin's also
was a subject of comment for all who were idle or listless in the
convent. What then could this thing be, so secret and so
precious, which was the treasure of the centenarian ? Doubtless,

484

Lcs Miserables

some sacred book, or some unique chaplet? or some proven
relic ? They lost themselves in conjecture. On the death of the
poor old woman they ran to the closet sooner, perhaps, than was
seemly, and opened it. The object of their curiosity was found
under triple cloths, like a blessed patine. It was a Faenza plate,
representing Loves in flight, pursued by apothecaries' boys,
armed with enormous syringes. The pursuit is full of grimaces
and comic postures. One of the charming little Loves is already
spitted. He struggles, shakes his little wings, and still tries to
fly away, but the lad capering about, laughs with a Satanic
laughter. Moral : — love conquered by cholic. This plate, very
curious, moreover, and which had the honour, perhaps, of giving
an idea to Moliere, was still in existence in September, 1845;
it was for sale in a second-hand store in the Boulevard Beau-
marchais.

This good old woman would receive no visit from the outside
world, because, said she, the locuiory is loo gloomy.

ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

THAT almost sepulchral locutory, of which we have endeavoured
to give an idea, is an entirely local feature, which is not repro-
duced with the same severity in other convents. At the convent
of the Rue du Temple in particular, which, indeed, was of another
order, the black shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and
the locutory itself was a nicely floored parlour, the windows of
which were draped with white muslin, while the walls admitted
a variety of pictures, a portrait of a Benedictine nun, with un-
covered face, flower-pieces, and even a Turk's head.

It was in the garden of the convent of the Rue du Temple,
that that horse-chestnut tree stood, which passed for the most
beautiful and the largest in France, and which, among the good
people of the eighteenth century, had the name of being the
father of all the horse-chestnuts in the kingdom.

As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied
by the Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration, Benedictines
quite distinct from those who spring from Citeaux. This order
of the Perpetual Adoration is not very ancient, and does not
date back more than two hundred years. In 1649, the Holy
Sacrament was profaned twice, within a few days, in two

Cosettc 485

churches in Paris, at Saint Sulpice, and at Saint Jean en Greve
— a rare and terrible sacrilege, which shocked the whole city.
The Prior Grand-vicar of Saint Germain des Pres ordained a
solemn procession of all his clergy, in which the Papal Nuncio
officiated. But this expiation was not sufficient for two noble
women, Madame Courtin, Marquise de Boucs, and the Countess
of Chateauvieux. This outrage, committed before the " most
august sacrament of the altar," although transient, did not pass
away from these two holy souls, and it seemed to them that it
could be atoned for only by a " Perpetual Adoration " in some
convent. They both, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made dona-
tions of considerable sums to Mother Catharine de Bar, sur-
named of the Holy Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, to enable her
to found, with that pious object, a monastery of the order of
Saint Benedict; the first permission for this foundation was
given to Mother Catharine de Bar, by M. de Metz, Abbe of Saint
Germain, " with the stipulation that no maiden shall be received
unless she brings three hundred livres of income, which is six
thousand livres of principal." After the Abbe of Saint Germain,
the king granted letters patent, and the whole, abbatial charter
and letters royal, was confirmed in 1654, by the Chamber of
Accounts and by the Parlement.

Such is the origin and the legal consecration of the establish-
ment of Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy
Sacrament at Paris. Their first convent was " built new," Rue
Cassette, with the money of Mesdames de Boucs and de
Chateauvieux.

_ This order, as we see, is not to be confounded with the Bene-
dictines called Cistercians. It sprang from the Abbe" of Saint
Germain des Pres, in the same manner as the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart spring from the General of the Jesuits and the
Sisters of Charity from the General of the Lazarists.

It is also entirely different from the Bernardines of the Petit
Picpus, whose interior life we have been exhibiting. In 1657,
Pope Alexander VII., by special bull, authorised the Bernar-
dines of the Petit Picpus to practise the Perpetual Adoration
like the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament. But the two
orders, none the less, remained distinct.

486 Les Miserables

END OF THE PETIT PICPUS

FROM the time of the restoration, the convent of the Petit Picpus
had been dwindling away; this was a portion of the general
death of the order, which, since the eighteenth century, has
been going the way of all religious orders. Meditation is, as
well as prayer, a necessity of humanity; but, like everything
which the revolution has touched, it will transform itself, and,
from being hostile to social progress, will become favourable
to it.

The house of the Petit Picpus dwindled rapidly. In 1840, the
little convent had disappeared; the school had disappeared.
There were no longer either the old women, or the young girls;
the former were dead, the latter had gone away. Volaverunt.

The rules of the Perpetual Adoration are so rigid that they
inspire dismay; inclinations recoil, the order gets no recruits.
In 1845, it still gathered here and there a few sister servants;
but no nuns of the choir. Forty years ago there were nearly a
hundred nuns, fifteen years ago there were only twenty-eight.
How many are there to-day? In 1847 the prioress was young,
a sign that the opportunity for choice was limited. She was
not forty. As the number diminishes the fatigue increases;
the service of each becomes more difficult, thenceforth they saw
the moment approaching when there should be only a dozen
sorrowful and bowed shoulders to bear the hard rules of Saint
Benedict. The burden is inflexible, and remains the same for the
few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they
died. Since the author of this book lived in Paris, two have
died. One was twenty-five, the other twenty-three. The
latter might say with Julia Alpinula: Hie jaceo, Vixi annos
viginti et ires. It was on account of this decay that the convent
abandoned the education of girls.

We could not pass by this extraordinary, unknown, obscure
house without entering and leading in those who accompany us,
and who listen as we relate, for the benefit of some, perhaps, the
melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into
that community full of its old practices which seem so novel
to-day. It is the closed garden. Hortus condusus. We have
spoken of this singular place with minuteness, but with respect,
as much at least as respect and minuteness are reconcilable.

Cosette 487

We do not comprehend everything, but we insult nothing We

•e equally distant from the hosannahs of Joseph De Maistre
who goes so far as to sanctify the executioner, and the mockery
of Voltaire, who goes so far as to rail at the crucifix.

Illogicalness of Voltaire, be it said by the way; for Voltaire
would have defended Jesus as he defended Galas; and, for those
even who deny the superhuman incarnation, what does the
crucifix represent? The assassinated sage.

In the nineteenth century the religious idea is undergoing a
crisis. We are unlearning certain things, and we do well pro-
vided that while unlearning one thing we are learning another
No vacuum m the human heart! Certain forms are torn down
and it is well that they should be, but on condition that they are
followed by reconstructions.

In the meantime let us study the things which are no more.
It is necessary to understand them, were it only to avoid them'

ie counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of
calling themselves the future. That spectre, the past, not un-
frequently falsifies its passport. Let us be ready for the snare.
Let us beware. The past has a face, superstition, and a mask
hypocrisy. Let us denounce the face and tear off the mask.

As to convents, they present a complex question. A question
of civilisation, which condemns them; a question of libertv
which protects them.

BOOK SEVENTH— A PARENTHESIS
I

THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA

THIS book is a drama the first character of which is the Infinite.

Man is the second.

This being the case, v/hen a convent was found on our path,
we were compelled to penetrate it. Why so? Because the
convent, which is common to the East as well as to the West, to
ancient as well as to modern times, to Paganism as well as to
Buddhism, to Mahometanism as well as to Christianity, is one
of the optical appliances turned by man upon the Infinite.

This is not the place for the development at length of certain
ideas; however, while rigidly maintaining our reservations, our
limits of expression, and even our impulses of indignation;
whenever we meet with the Infinite in man, whether well or ill
understood, we are seized with an involuntary feeling of respect.
There in the synagogue, in the mosque, a hideous side that we
detest, and in the pagoda and in the wigwam, a sublime aspect
that we adore. What a subject of meditation for the mind, and
what a limitless source of reverie is this reflection of God upon
the human wall !

THE CONVENT AS A HISTORICAL FACT

IN the light of history, reason, and truth, monastic life stands
condemned.

Monasteries, when they are numerous in a country, are knots
in the circulation; encumbrances, centres of indolence, where
there should be centres of industry. Monastic communities
are to the great social community what the ivy is to the oak,
what the wart is to the human body. There prosperity and fat-
ness are the impoverishment of the country. The monastic
system, useful as it is in the dawn of civilisation, in effecting the
abatement of brutality by the development of the spiritual, is

488

Cosette 489

injurious in the manhood of nations. Especially when it relaxes
and enters upon its period of disorganisation, the period in
which we now see it, does it become baneful, for every reason
that made it salutary, in its period of purity.

These withdrawals into convents and monasteries have had
their day. Cloisters, although beneficial in the first training of
modern civilisation, cramped its growth, and are injurious to
its development. Regarded as an institution, and as a method
of culture for man, monasteries, good in the tenth century, were
open to discussion in the fifteenth, and are detestable in the
nineteenth. The leprosy of monasticism has gnawed, almost
to a skeleton, two admirable nations, Italy and Spain, one the
light, and the other the glory of Europe, for centuries; and, in
our time, the cure of these two illustrious peoples is beginning,
thanks only to the sound and vigorous hygiene of 1789.

The convent, the old style convent especially, such as it
appeared on the threshold of this century, in Italy, Austria, and
Spain, is one of the gloomiest concretions of the Middle Ages.
The cloister, the cloister as there beheld, was the intersecting
point of multiplied horrors. The Catholic cloister, properly
so-called, is filled with the black effulgence of death.

The Spanish convent is dismal above all the rest. There, rise
in the obscurity, beneath vaults filled with mist, beneath domes
dim with thick shadow, massive Babel-like altars, lofty as
cathedrals; there, hang by chains in the deep gloom, immense
white emblems of the crucifixion; there, are extended, naked
on the ebon wood, huge ivory images of Christ — more than
bloody, bleeding — hideous and magnificent, their bones pro-
truding from the elbows, their knee-pans disclosing the strained
integuments, their wounds revealing the raw flesh — crowned
with thorns of silver, nailed with nails of gold, with drops of
blood in rubies on their brows, and tears of diamonds in their
eyes. The diamonds and the rubies seem real moisture; and
down below there, in the shadow, make veiled ones weep, whose
loins are scratched and torn with haircloth, and scourges set
thick with iron points, whose breasts are bruised with wicker
pads, and whose knees are lacerated by the continual attitude
of prayer; women who deem themselves wives; spectres that
fancy themselves seraphim. Do these women think? No.
Have they a will? No. Do they love? No. Do they live?
No. Their nerves have become bone ; their bones have become
rock, Their veil is the enwoven night. Their breath, beneath
that veil, is like some indescribable, tragic respiration of death

49° Les Miserables

itself. The abbess, a phantom, sanctifies and terrifies them.
The immaculate is there, austere to behold. Such are the old
convents of Spain — dens of terrible devotion, lairs inhabited by
virgins, wild and savage places.

Catholic Spain was more Roman than Rome herself. The
Spanish convent was the model of the Catholic convent. The
air was redolent of the East. The archbishop, as officiating
kislaraga of heaven, locked in, and zealously watched this
seraglio of souls set apart for God. The nun was the odalisque,
the priest was the eunuch. The fervently devout were, in their
dreams, the chosen ones, and were possessed of Christ. At
night, the lovely naked youth descended from the cross, and
became the rapture of the cell. Lofty walls guarded from all
the distractions of real life the mystic Sultana, who had the
Crucified for Sultan. A single glance without was an act of
perfidy. The in pace took the place of the leather sack. What
they threw into the sea in the East, they threw into the earth in
the West. On either side, poor women wrung their hands ; the
waves to those — to these the pit; there the drowned and here
the buried alive. Monstrous parallelism !

In our day, the champions of the Past, unable to deny these
things, have adopted the alternative of smiling at them. It
has become the fashion, a convenient and a strange one, to sup-
press the revelations of history, to invalidate the comments of
philosophy, and to draw the pen across all unpleasant facts
and all gloomy inquiries. " Topics for declamation," throw in
the skilful. " Declamation," echo the silly. Jean Jacques, a
declaimer; Diderot, a declaimer; Voltaire on Calas, Labarre,
and Sirven, a declaimer ! I forget who it is who has lately made
out Tacitus, too, a declaimer, Nero a victim, and " that poor
Holophernes " a man really to be pitied.

Facts, however, are stubborn, and hard to baffle. The author
of this book has seen, with his own eyes, about twenty miles
from Brussels, a specimen of the Middle Ages, within everybody's
reach, at the Abbey of Villars — the orifices of the secret dun-
geons in the middle of the meadow which was once the court-
yard of the cloister, and, on the banks of the Dyle, four stone
cells, half underground and half under water. These were in
pace. Each of these dungeons has a remnant of an iron wicket,
a closet, and a barred skylight, which, on the outside, is two
feet above the surface of the river, and from the inside is six feet
above the ground. Four feet in depth of the river flows along
the outer face of the wall; the ground near by is constantly wet.

Cosette

491

This saturated soil was the only bed of the in pace occupant.
In one of these dungeons there remains the stump of an iron
collar fixed in the wall; in another may be seen a kind of square
box, formed of four slabs of granite, too short for a human being
to lie down in, too low to stand in erect. Now, in this was placed
a creature like ourselves, and then a lid of stone was closed
above her head. There it is. You can see it; you can touch it.
These in pace ; these dungeons; these iron hinges; these metal
collars; this lofty skylight, on a level with which the river runs;
this box of stone, covered by its lid of granite, like a sepulchre,
with this difference, that it shut in the living and not the dead ;
this soil of mud, this cess-pool; these oozing walls. Oh I what
declaimers 1

III

UPON WHAT CONDITIONS WE CAN RESPECT THE PAST

MONASTICISM, such as it was in Spain, and such as it is in Thibet,
is for civilisation a kind of consumption. It stops life short.
It, in one word, depopulates. Monastic incarceration is castra-
tion. In Europe, it has been a scourge. Add to that, the
violence so often done to conscience; the ecclesiastical calling
so frequently compulsory; the feudal system leaning on the
cloister; primogeniture emptying into the monastery the surplus
of the family; the ferocious cruelties which we have just
described; the in pace; mouths closed, brains walled-up, so
many hapless intellects incarcerated in the dungeons of eternal
vows; the assumption of the gown, the burial of souls alive.
Add these individual torments to the national degradation,
and, whoever you may be, you will find yourself shuddering
at the sight of the frock and the veil, those two winding
sheets of human invention.

However, on certain points and in certain places, in spite of
philosophy, and in spite of progress, the monastic spirit per-
severes in the full blaze of the nineteenth century, and a singular
revival of asceticisai, at this very moment, amazes the civilised
world. The persistence of superannuated institutions in striving
to perpetuate themselves is like the obstinacy of a rancid odour
clinging to the hair; the pretension of spoiled fish that insists
on being eaten, the tenacious folly of a child's garment trying to
clothe a man, or the tenderness of a corpse returning to embrace
the living.

492 Les Miserables

" Ingrates ! " exclaims the garment. " I shielded you in
weakness. Why do you reject me now? " " I come from the
depths of the sea/' says the fish; " I was once a rose," cries the
odour; " I loved you/' murmurs the corpse; " I civilised you/'
says the convent.

To this there is but one reply ; " In the past."

To dream of the indefinite prolongation of things dead and the
government of mankind by embalming; to restore dilapidated
dogmas, regild the shrines, replaster the cloisters, reconsecrate
the reliquaries, revamp old superstitions, replenish fading
fanaticism, put new handles in worn-out sprinkling brushes,
reconstitute monasticism; to believe in the salvation of society
by the multiplication of parasites; to foist the past upon the
present, all this seems strange. There are, however, advocates
for such theories as these. These theorists, men of mind too, in
other things, have a very simple process; they apply to the past
a coating of what they term divine right, respect for our fore-
fathers, time-honoured authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy;
and they go about, shouting, " Here! take this, good people! "
This kind of logic was familiar to the ancients; their sooth-
sayers practised it. Rubbing over a black heifer with chalk,
they would exclaim " She is white." Bos cretatus.

As for ourselves, we distribute our respect, here and there, and
spare the past entirely, provided it will but consent to be dead.
But, if it insist upon being alive, we attack it and endeavour
to kill it.

Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phan-
toms, phantoms though they be, are tenacious of life; they
have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must
grapple with them, body to body, and make war upon them
and that, too, without cessation; for it is one of the fatalities of
humanity to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.
A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash upon the
ground.

A convent in France, in the high noon of the nineteenth
century, is a college of owls confronting the day. A cloister
in the open act of asceticism in the full face of the city, of '89,
of 1830 and of 1848, Rome blooming forth in Paris, is an
anachronism. In ordinary times, to disperse an anachronism
and cause it to vanish, one has only to make it spell the year of
our Lord. But, we do not live in ordinary times.

Let us attack, then.

Let us attack, but let us distinguish. The characteristic of

Cosettc

493

truth is never to run into excess. What need has she of exag-
geration? Some things must be destroyed, and some things
must be merely cleared up and investigated. What power
there is in a courteous and serious examination I Let us not
therefore carry flame where light alone will suffice.

Well, then, assuming that we are in the nineteenth century,
we are opposed, as a general proposition, and in every nation,
in Asia as well as in Europe, in Judea as well as in Turkey, to
ascetic seclusion in monasteries. He who says " convent "
says " marsh." Their putrescence is apparent, their stagnation
is baleful, their fermentation fevers and infects the nations, and
their increase becomes an Egyptian plague. We cannot, with-
out a shudder, think of those countries where Fakirs, Bonzes,
Santons, Caloyers, Marabouts, and Talapoins multiply in
swarms, like vermin.

Having said this much, the religious question still remains.
This question has some mysterious aspects, and we must ask
leave to look it steadily in the face.

THE CONVENT VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF PRINCIPLE

MEN come together and live in common. By what right? By
virtue of the right of association.

They shut themselves up. By what right? By virtue of
the right every man has to open or to shut his door.

They do not go out. By what right ? By virtue of the right
to go and come which implies the right to stay at home.

And what are they doing there, at home ?

They speak in low tones; they keep their eyes fixed on the
ground; they work. They give up the world, cities, sensual
enjoyments, pleasures, vanities, pride, interest. They go clad
in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them possesses
any property whatever. Upon entering, he who was rich
becomes poor. What he had, he gives to all. He who was
what is called a nobleman, a man of rank, a lord, is the equal of
him who was a peasant. The cell is the same for all. All under-
go the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black
bread, sleep on the same straw, and die on the same ashes. The
same sack-cloth is on every back, the same rope about every
waist. If it be the rule to go bare-footed, all go with naked
feet. There may be a prince among them; the prince is a

494 Les Miserables

shadow like all the rest. Titles there are none. Family names
even have disappeared. They answer only to Christian names.
All are bowed beneath the equality of their baptismal names.
They have dissolved the family of the flesh, and have formed, in
their community, the family of the spirit. They have no other
relatives than all mankind. They succour the poor, they tend
the sick. They choose out those whom they are to obey, and
they address one another by the title: " Brother! "

You stop me, exclaiming : " But, that is the ideal monastery ! "

It is enough that it is a possible monastery, for me to take it
into consideration.

Hence it is that, in the preceding book, I spoke of a convent
with respect. The Middle Ages aside, Asia aside, and the
historical and political question reserved, in the purely philo-
sophical point of view, beyond the necessities of militant
polemics, on condition that the monastery be absolutely volun-
tary and contain none but willing devotees, I should always
look upon the monastic community with a certain serious, and,
in some respects, deferential attention. Where community
exists, there likewise exists the true body politic, and where the
latter is, there too is justice. The monastery is the product
of the formula: "Equality, Fraternity." Oh! how great
is liberty! And how glorious the transfiguration! Liberty
suffices to transform the monastery into a republic !

Let us proceed.

These men or women who live within those four walls, and
dress in haircloth, are equal in condition and call each other
brother and sister. It is well, but do they do aught else ?

Yes.

What?

They gaze into the gloom, they kneel, and they join their
hands.

What does that mean ?

V
PRAYER

THEY pray.
To whom ?
To God.

Pray to God, what is meant by that?
Is there an infinite outside of us? Is this infinite, one,

Cosette 495

inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, because it is
infinite, and because, if matter were wanting to it, it would in
that respect be limited; necessarily intelligent, because it is
infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would be to that
extent, finite? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of
essence, while we are able to attribute to ourselves the idea of
existence only ? In other words, is it not the absolute of which
we are the relative ?

At the same time, while there is an infinite outside of us, is
there not an infinite within us? These two infinites (fearful
plural!) do they not rest super-posed on one another? Does
not the second infinite underlie the first, so to speak? Is it not
the mirror, the reflection, the echo of the first, an abyss con-
centric with another abyss? Is this second infinite, intelligent
also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will? If the
two infinites be intelligent, each one of them has a will principle,
and there is a " me " in the infinite above, as there is a " me "
in the infinite below. The " me " below is the soul; the " me "
above is God.

To place, by process of thought, the infinite below in contact
with the infinite above, is called " prayer."

Let us not take anything away from the human mind ; sup-
pression is evil. We must reform and transform. Certain
faculties of man are directed towards the Unknown; thought,
meditation, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What is
conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought,
meditation, prayer, these are the great, mysterious pointings of
the needle. Let us respect them. Whither tend these majestic
irradiations of the soul? into the shadow, that is, towards the
light.

The grandeur of democracy is that it denies nothing and
renounces nothing of humanity. Close by the rights of Man,
side by side with them, at least, are the rights of the Soul.

To crush out fanaticisms and revere the Infinite, such is the
law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath
the tree of Creation and contemplating its vast ramifications
full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the
human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the
incomprehensible and reject the absurd; to admit nothing that
is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and
obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the
vermin from the garden of God.

49 6 Les Miserables

ABSOLUTE EXCELLENCE OF PRAYER

-As to methods of prayer, all are good, if they be but sincere,
Turn your book over and be in the infinite.

There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite.
There is also a philosophy, classed pathologically, which denies
the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.

To set up a sense we lack as a source of truth, is a fine piece of
blind man's assurance. ,

And the rarity of it consists in the haughty air of superiority
and compassion which is assumed towards the philosophy that
sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It
makes one think of a mole exclaiming: " How they excite my
pity with their prate about a sun ! "

There are, we know, illustrious and mighty atheists. These
men, in fact, led round again towards truth by their very power,
are not absolutely sure of being atheists; with them, the matter
is nothing but a question of definitions, and, at all events, if
they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.

We hail, in them, philosophers, while, at the same time,
inexorably disputing their philosophy.

But, let us proceed.

An admirable thing, too, is the facility of settling everything
to one's satisfaction with words. A metaphysical school at the
North, slightly impregnated with the fogs, has imagined that it
effected a revolution in the human understanding by substituting
for the word " Force " the word " Will."

To say, " the plant wills," instead of " the plant grows,"
would be indeed pregnant with meaning if you were to add,
" the universe wills." Why ? Because this would flow from it:
the plant wills, then it has a "me; " the universe wills, then it
has a God.

To us, however, who, in direct opposition to this school, reject
nothing a priori, a will in the plant, which is accepted by this
school, appears more difficult to admit, than a will in the
universe, which it denies.

To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say God, can be done
only on condition of denying the infinite itself. We have
demonstrated that.

Denial of the infinite leads directly to nihilism. Everything
becomes " a conception of the mind."

Cosettc

497

With nihilism no discussion is possible. For the logical
nihilist doubts the existence of his interlocutor, and is not quite
sure that he exists himself.

From his point of view it is possible that he may be to himself
only a " conception of his mind."

However, he does not perceive that all he has denied he
admits in a mass by merely pronouncing the word " mind."

To sum up, no path is left open for thought by a philosophy
that makes everything come to but one conclusion, the mono-
syllable " No."

To " No," there is but one reply: " Yes."

Nihilism has no scope. There is no nothing. Zero does not
exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.

Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.

To behold and to show forth, even these will not suffice.
Philosophy should be an energy; it should find its aim and its
effect in the amelioration of mankind. Socrates should enter
into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius — in other words, bring
forth from the man of enjoyment, the man of wisdom — and
change Eden into the Lyceum. Science should be a cordial.
Enjoyment! What wretched aim, and what pitiful ambition 1
The brute enjoys. Thought, this is the true triumph of the
soul. To proffer thought to the thirst of men, to give to all, as
an elixir, the idea of God, to cause conscience and science to
fraternise in them, and to make them good men by this mys-
terious confrontation — such is the province of true philosophy.
Morality is truth in full bloom. Contemplation leads to action.
The absolute should be practical. The ideal must be made air
and food and drink to the human mind. It is the ideal which
has the right to say : Take of it, this is my flesh, this is my blood.
Wisdom is a sacred communion. It is upon that condition that
it ceases to be a sterile love of science, and becomes the one and
supreme method by which to rally humanity; from philosophy
it is promoted to religion.

Philosophy should not be a mere watch-tower, built upon
mystery, from which to gaze at ease upon it, with no other
result than to be a convenience for the curious.

For ourselves, postponing the development of our thought to
some other occasion, we will only say that we do not comprehend
either man as a starting-point, or progress as the goal, without
those two forces which are the two great motors, faith and
love.

Progress is the aim, the ideal is the model.

Les Miserables

What is the ideal? It is God.

Ideal, absolute, perfection, the infinite — these are identical
words.

VII

PRECAUTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN CENSURE

HISTORY and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the
same time, simple duties — to oppose Caiaphas as bishop, Draco
as judge, Trimalcion as legislator, and Tiberius as emperor.
This is clear, direct, and limpid, and presents no obscurity.
But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and
abuses, must be verified and dealt with carefully. The life of
the cenobite is a human problem.

When we speak of convents, those seats of error but of
innocence, of mistaken views but of good intentions, of ignor-
ance but of devotion, of torment but of martyrdom, we must
nearly always have " Yes " and " No " upon our lips.

A convent is a contradiction, — its object salvation, its means
self-sacrifice. The convent is supreme egotism resulting in
supreme self-denial.

" Abdicate that you may reign " seems to be the device of
monasticism.

In the cloister they suffer that they may enjoy — they draw
a bill of exchange on death — they discount the celestial splendour
in terrestrial night. In the cloister, hell is accepted as the charge
made in advance on the future inheritance of heaven.

The assumption of the veil or the frock is a suicide reimbursed
by an eternity.

It seems to us that, in treating such a subject, raillery would
be quite out of place. Everything relating to it is serious, the
good as well as the evil.

The good man knits his brows, but never smiles with the bad
man's smile. We can understand anger but not malignity.

VIII

FAITH— LAW

A FEW words more.

We blame the Church when it is saturated with intrigues; we
despise the spiritual when it is harshly austere to the temporal;
but we honour everywhere, the thoughtful man.

Cosette 490

We bow to the man who kneels.

A faith is a necessity to man. Woe to him who believes
nothing.

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is
a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.

To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.

Folded arms work, closed hands perform, a paze fixed on
heaven is a toil.

Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded
philosophy.

In our eyes, cenobites are not idlers, nor is the recluse a
sluggard.

To think of the Gloom is a serious thing.

Without at all invalidating what we have just said, we believe
that a perpetual remembrance of the tomb is proper for the
living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We
must die. The Abbe" of La Trappe answers Horace.

To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre
is the law of the wise man, and it is the law of the ascetic. In
this relation, the ascetic and the sage tend towards a common
centre.

There is a material advancement; we desire it. There is
also, a moral grandeur; we hold fast to it.

Unreflecting, headlong minds say:

" Of what use are those motionless figures by the side of
mystery? What purpose do they serve? What do thev
effect? "

Alas! in the presence of that obscurity which surrounds us
and awaits us, not knowing what the vast dispersion of all
things will do with us, we answer: There is, perhaps, no work
more sublime than that which is accomplished by these souls;
and we add, There is no labour, perhaps, more useful.

Those who pray always are necessary to those who never
pray.

In our view, the whole question is in the amount of thought
that is mingled with prayer.

Leibnitz, praying, is something grand; Voltaire, worshipping,
is something beautiful. Deo erexit Voltaire.

We are for religion against the religions.

We are of those who believe in the pitifulness of orisons, and
in the sublimity of prayer.

Besides, in this moment through which we are passing, a
moment which happily will not leave its stamp upon the nine-

500 Les Miserables

teenth century; in this hour which finds so many with their
brows abased so low and their souls so little uplifted, among so
many of the living whose motto is happiness, and who are
occupied with the brief, mis-shapen things of matter, whoever
is sell-exiled seems venerable to us. The monastery is a renun-
ciation. Self-sacrifice, even when misdirected, is still self-sacrifice.
To assume as duty an uninviting error has its peculiar grandeur.

Considered in itself, ideally, and holding it up to truth, until
it is impartially and exhaustively examined in all its aspects,
the monastery, and particularly the convent — for woman suffers
most under our system of society, and in this exile of the cloister
there is an element of protest — the convent, we repeat, has, un-
questionably, a certain majesty.

This monastic existence, austere and gloomy as it is, of which
we have delineated a few characteristics, is not life, is not liberty :
for it is not the grave, for it is not completion : it is that singular
place, from which, as from the summit of a lofty mountain, we
perceive, on one side, the abyss in which we are, and, on the
other, the abyss wherein we are to be: it is a narrow and misty
boundary, that separates two worlds, at once illuminated and
obscured by both, where the enfeebled ray of life commingles
with the uncertain ray of death; it is the twilight of the tomb.

For ourselves, we, who do not believe what these women
believe, but live, like them, by faith, never could look without
a species of tender and religious awe, a kind of pity full of envy,
upon those devoted beings, trembling yet confident — those
humble yet august souls, who 'dare to live upon the very confines
of the great mystery, waiting between the world closed to them
and heaven not yet opened; turned towards the daylight not
yet seen, with only the happiness of thinking that they know
where it is; their aspirations directed towards the abyss and
the unknown, their gaze fixed on the motionless gloom, kneeling,
dismayed, stupefied, shuddering, and half borne away at certain
times by the deep pulsations of Eternity.

BOOK EIGHTH
CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT IS GIVEN THEM

WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING THE
CONVENT

INTO this house it was that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent
said, " fallen from heaven."

He had crossed the garden wall at the corner ef the Rue
Polonceau. That angels' hymn which he had heard in the
middle of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall
of which he had caught a glimpse in the obscurity, was the
chapel; that phantom which he had seen extended on the floor
was the sister performing the reparation; that bell the sound
of which had so strangely surprised him was the gardener's
bell fastened to old Fauchelevent's knee.

When Cosette had been put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauche-
levent had, as we have seen, taken a glass of wine and a piece
of cheese before a blazing fire; then, the only bed in the shanty
being occupied by Cosette, they had thrown themselves each
upon a bundle of straw. Before closing his eyes, Jean Valjean
had said: "Henceforth I must remain here." These words
were chasing one another through Fauchelevent's head the whole
night.

To tell the truth, neither of them had slept.

Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and Javert
was upon his track, knew full well that he and Cosette were
lost should they return into the city. Since the new blast
which had burst upon him, had thrown him into this cloister,
Jean Valjean had but one thought, to remain there. Now, for
one in his unfortunate position, this convent was at once the
safest and the most dangerous place; the most dangerous, for,
no man being allowed to enter, if he should be discovered, it
was a flagrant crime, and Jean Valjean would take but one step
from the convent to prison; the safest, for if he succeeded in

502 Lcs Miserables

getting permission to remain, who would come there to look
for him? To live in an impossible place; that would be safety.

For his part, Fauchelevent was racking his brains. He began
by deciding that he was utterly bewildered. How did Monsieur
Madeleine come there, with such walls! The walls of a cloister
are not so easily crossed. How did he happen to be with a
child? A man does not scale a steep wall with a child in his
arms. Who was this child ? Where did they both come from ?
Since Fauchelevent had been in the convent, he had not heard

a word from M sur M , and he knew nothing of what

had taken place. Father Madeleine wore that air which dis-
courages questions; and moreover Fauchelevent said to himself:
" One does not question a saint." To him Monsieur Madeleine
had preserved all his prestige. From some words that escaped
from Jean Valjean, however, the gardener thought he might
conclude that Monsieur Madeleine had probably failed on
account of the hard times, and that he was pursued by his
creditors; or it might be that he was compromised in some
political affair and was concealing himself; which did not at all
displease Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the
north, had an old Bonapartist heart. Being in concealment,
Monsieur Madeleine had taken the convent for an asylum, and
it was natural that he should wish to remain there. But the
mystery to which Fauchelevent constantly returned and over
which he was racking his brains was, that Monsieur Madeleine
should be there, and that this little girl should be with him.
Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and yet
did not believe it. An incomprehensibility had made its way
into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent was groping amid con-
jectures, but saw nothing clearly except this: Monsieur Made-
leine has saved my life. This single certainty was sufficient,
and determined him. He said aside to himself: It is my turn
now. He added in his conscience : Monsieur Madeleine did not
deliberate so long when the question was about squeezing him-
self under the waggon to draw me out. He decided that he
would save Monsieur Madeleine.

He however put several questions to himself and made
several answers: " After what he has done for me, if he were a
thief, would I save him ? just the same. If he were an assassin,
would I save him? just the same. Since he is a saint, shall I
save him? just the same."

But to have him remain in the convent, what a problem was
thatl Before that almost chimerical attempt, Fauchelevent

Cosette 503

did not recoil; this poor Picardy peasant, with no other ladder
than his devotion, his goodwill, a little of that old country
cunning, engaged for once in the service of a generous intention,
undertook to scale the impossibilities of the cloister and the
craggy escarpments of the rules of St. Benedict. Fauchelevent
was an old man who had been selfish throughout his life, and
who, near the end of his days, crippled, infirm, having no
interest longer in the world, found it sweet to be grateful, and
seeing a virtuous action to be done, threw himself into it like a
man who, at the moment of death, finding at hand a glass of
some good wine which he had never tasted, should drink it
greedily. We might add that the air which he had been breathing
now for several years in this convent had destroyed his person-
ality, and had at last rendered some good action necessary to him.

He formed his resolution then : to devote himself to Monsieur
Madeleine.

We have just described him as a -poor Picardy peasant. The
description is true, but incomplete. At the point of this story
at which we now are, a closer acquaintance with Fauchelevent
becomes necessary. He was a peasant, but he had been a
notary, which added craft to his cunning, and penetration to
his simplicity. Having, from various causes, failed in his busi-
ness, from a notary he had fallen to a cartman and labourer.
But, in spite of the oaths and blows which seem necessary with
horses, he had retained something of the notary. He had some
natural wit; he said neither I is nor I has; he could carry on a
conversation, a rare thing in a village; and the other peasants
said of him: he talks almost like a gentleman. Fauchelevent
belonged in fact to that class which the flippant and impertinent
vocabulary of the last century termed : half-yeoman, half-down ;
and which the metaphors falling from the castle to the hovel,
label in the distribution of the commonalty: half-rustic, half-
citizen, pepper-and-salt. Fauchelevent, although sorely tried
and sorely used by Fortune ; a sort of poor old soul worn thread-
bare, was nevertheless an impulsive man, and had a very willing
heart; a precious quality, which prevents one from ever being
wicked. His faults and his vices, for such he had, were super-
ficial; and finally, his physiognomy was one of those which
attract the observer. That old face had none of those ugly
wrinkles in the upper part of the forehead which indicate
wickedness or stupidity.

At daybreak, having dreamed enormously, old Fauchelevent
opened his eyes, and saw Monsieur Madeleine, who, seated upon

504 Les Miserables

his bunch of straw, was looking at Cosette as she slept. Fauche-
levent half arose, and said : —

" Now that you are here, how are you going to manage to
come in ? "

This question summed up the situation, and wakened Jean
Valjean from his reverie.

The two men took counsel.

" To begin with," said Fauchelevent, " you will not set foot
outside of this room, neither the little girl nor you. One step
in the garden, we are ruined."

" That is true."

" Monsieur Madeleine," resumed Fauchelevent, " you have
arrived at a very good time ; I mean to say very bad ; there is
one of these ladies dangerously sick. On that account they do
not look this way much. She must be dying. They are saying
the forty-hour prayers. The whole community is in derange-
ment. That takes up their attention. She who is about de-
parting is a saint. In fact, we are all saints here; all the
difference between them and me is, that they say: our cell, and
I say: my shanty. They are going to have the orison for the
dying, and then the orison for the dead. For to-day we shall
be quiet here; and I do not answer for to-morrow."

" However," observed Jean Valjean, "this shanty is under
the corner of the wall ; it is hidden by a sort of ruin ; there are
trees; they cannot see it from the convent."

" And I add, that the nuns never come near it."

" Well? " said Jean Valjean.

The interrogation point which followed that well, meant: it
seems to me that we can remain here concealed. This interroga-
tion point Fauchelevent answered : —

" There are the little girls."

" What little girls? " asked Jean Valjean.

As Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words he
had just uttered, a single stroke of a bell was heard.

" The nun is dead," said he. " There is the knell."

And he motioned to Jean Valjean to listen.

The bell sounded a second time.

" It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will strike
every minute, for twenty-four hours, until the body goes out of
the church. You see they play. In their recreations, if a ball
roll here, that is enough for them to come after it, in spite of the
rules, and rummage all about here. Those cherubs are little
devils."

Coscttc 505

" Who? " asked Jean Valjean.

" The little girls. You would be found out very soon. They
would cry, ' What ! a man ! ' But there is no danger to-day.
There will be no recreation. The day will be all prayers. You
hear the bell. As I told you, a stroke every minute. It is the
knell."

" I understand, Father Fauchelevent. There are boarding
scholars."

And Jean Valjean thought within himself: —

" Here, then, Cosette can be educated, too."

Fauchelevent exclaimed : —

" Zounds ! they are the little girls for you ! And how they
would scream at sight of you ! and how they would run ! Here,
to be a man, is to have the plague. You see how they fasten a
bell to my leg, as they would to a wild beast."

Jean Valjean was studying more and more deeply. " The
convent would save us," murmured he. Then he raised his
voice :

" Yes, the difficulty is in remaining."

" No," said Fauchelevent, " it is to get out."

Jean Valjean felt his blood run cold.

"To get out?"

" Yes, Monsieur Madeleine, in order to come in, it is necessary
that you should get out."

And, after waiting for a sound from the tolling bell to die
away, Fauchelevent pursued : —

" It would not do to have you found here like this. Whence
do you come? for me you have fallen from heaven, because I
know you; but for the nuns, you must come in at the door.

Suddenly they heard a complicated ringing upon another bell.

" Oh! " said Fauchelevent, " that is the ring for the mothers.
They are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter
when anybody dies. She died at daybreak. It is usually at
daybreak that people die. But cannot you go out the way you
came in? Let us see; this is not to question you, but where did
you come in? "

Jean Valjean became pale; the bare idea of climbing down
again into that formidable street, made him shudder. Make
your way out of a forest full of tigers, and when out, fancy your-
self advised by a friend to return. Jean Valjean imagined all
the police still swarming in the quarter, officers on the watch,
sentries everywhere, frightful fists stretched out towards his
collar, Javert, perhaps, at the corner of the square.

506 Les Miserables

" Impossible," said he. " Father Fauchelvent, let it go
that I fell from on high."

"Ah! I believe it, I believe it," replied Fauchelevent. "You
have no need to tell me so. God must have taken you into his
hand, to have a close look at you, and then put you down.
Only he meant to put you into a monastery; he made a mistake.
Hark! another ring; that is to warn the porter to go and
notify the municipality, so that they may go and notify the
death-physician, so that he may come and see that there is
really a dead woman. All that is the ceremony of dying.
These good ladies do not like this visit very much. A physician
believes in nothing. He lifts the veil. He even lifts something
else, sometimes. How soon they have notified the inspector,
this time ! What can be the matter ? Your little one is asleep
yet. What is her name ? "

" Cosette."

" She is your girl? that is to say: you should be her grand-
father? "

" Yes."

" For her, to get out will be easy. I have my door, which
opens into the court. I knock; the porter opens. I have my
basket on my back; the little girl is inside; I go out. Father
Fauchelevent goes out with his basket — that is all simple. You
will tell the little girl to keep very still. She will be under cover.
I will leave her as soon as I can, with a good old friend of mine,
a fruiteress, in the Rue du Chemin Vert, who is deaf, and who
has a little bed. I will scream into the fruiteress's ear that she
is my niece, and she must keep her for me till to-morrow. Then
the little girl will come back with you; for I shall bring you
back. It must be done. But how are you going to manage to
get out?"

Jean Valjean shook his head.

" Let nobody see me, that is all, Father Fauchelevent. Find
some means to get me out, like Cosette, in a basket, and under
cover."

Fauchelevent scratched the tip of his ear with the middle
finger of his left hand — a sign of serious embarrassment.

A third ring made a diversion.

" That is the death-physician going away," said Fauchelevent.
" He has looked, and said she is dead; it is right. When the
inspector has vised the passport for paradise, the undertaker
sends a coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if it
is a sister, the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail it up.

Cosette

507

That's ^a part of my gardening. A gardener is something of a
gravedigger. They put her in a low room in the church which
communicates with the street, and where no man can enter
except the death-physician. I do not count the bearers and
myself for men. In that room I nail the coffin. The bearers
come and take her, and whip-up, driver: that is the way they
go to heaven. They bring in a box with nothing in it, they
carry it away with something inside. That is what an inter-
ment is. De profundis."

A ray of the rising sun beamed upon the face of the sleeping
Cosette, who half-opened her mouth dreamily, seeming like an
angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean was looking at her.
He no longer heard Fauchelevent.

Not being heard is no reason for silence. The brave old
gardener quietly continued his garrulous rehearsal.

" The grave is at the Vaugirard cemetery. They pretend
that this Vaugirard cemetery is going to be suppressed. It is an
ancient cemetery, which is not according to the regulations,
which does not wear the uniform, and which is going to be
retired. I arn sorry for it, for it is convenient. I have a friend
there — Father Mestienne, the gravedigger. The nuns here have
the privilege of being carried to that cemetery at night-fall.
There is an order of the Prefecture, expressly for them. But
what events since yesterday? Mother Crucifixion is dead, and
Father Madeleine "

" Is buried," said Jean Valjean, sadly smiling.

Fauchelevent echoed the word.

" Really, if you were here for good, it would be a genuine
burial."

A fourth time the bell rang out. Fauchelevent quickly took
down the knee-piece and bell from the nail, and buckled it on
his knee.

" This time, it is for me. The mother prioress wants me.
Welll I am pricking myself with the tongue of my buckle.
Monsieur Madeleine, do not stir, but wait for me. There is
something new. If you are hungry, there is the wine, and
bread and cheese."

And he went out of the hut, saying: " I am coming, I am
coming."

Jean Valjean saw him hasten across the garden, as fast as his
crooked leg would let him, with side glances at his melons the
while.

In less than ten minutes, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell

508

Les Miserables

put the nuns to flight as he went along, rapped softly at a door,
and a gentle voice answered — Forever, Forever I that is to say,
Come in.

This door was that of the parlour allotted to the gardener, for
use when it was necessary to communicate with him. This
parlour was near the hall of the chapter. The prioress, seated
in the only chair in the parlour, was waiting for Fauchelevent.

FAUCHELEVENT FACING THE DIFFICULTY

A SERIOUS and troubled bearing is peculiar, on critical occasions,
to certain characters and certain professions, especially priests
and monastics. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered,
this double sign of preoccupation marked the countenance of
the prioress, the charming and learned Mademoiselle de Blemeur,
Mother Innocent, who was ordinarily cheerful.

The gardener made a timid bow, and stopped at the threshold
of the cell. The prioress, who was saying her rosary, raised her
eyes and said:

"Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent."

This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent.

Fauchelevent again began his bow.

" Father Fauvent, I have called you."

" I am here, reverend mother."

" I wish to speak to you."

" And I, for my part," said Fauchelevent, with a boldness at
which he was alarmed himself, " I have something to say to the
most reverend mother."

The prioress looked at him.

" Ah, you have a communication to make to me."

"A petition!"

"Well, what is it?"

Goodman Fauchelevent, ex-notary, belonged to that class
of peasants who are never disconcerted. A certain combination
of ignorance and skill is very effective; you do not suspect it,
and you accede to it. Within little more than two years that
he had lived in the convent, Fauchelevent had achieved a success
in the community. Always alone, and even while attending to
his garden, he had hardly anything to do but to be curious.
Being, as he was, at a distance from all these veiled women, going

Cosette 509

to and fro, he saw before him hardly more than a fluttering of
shadows. By dint of attention and penetration, he had suc-
ceeded in clothing all these phantoms with flesh, and these dead
were alive to him. He was like a deaf man whose sight is ex-
tended, and like a blind man whose hearing is sharpened. He
had applied himself to unravelling the meaning of the various
rings, and had made them out; so that in this enigmatic and
taciturn cloister, nothing was hidden from him: this sphynx
blabbed all her secrets in his ear. Fauchelevent, knowing every-
thing, concealed everything. That was his art. The whole
convent thought him stupid — a great merit in religion. The
mothers prized Fauchelevent. He was a rare mute. He inspired
confidence. Moreover, he was regular in his habits, and never
went out except when it was clearly necessary on account of
the orchard and the garden. This discretion in his conduct
was counted to his credit. He had, nevertheless, learned the
secrets of two men; the porter of the convent, who knew the
peculiarities of the parlour, and the grave-digger of the cemetery,
who knew the singularities of burial: in this manner, he had a
double-light in regard to these nuns — one upon their life, the
other upon their death. But he did not abuse it. The con-
gregation thought much of him, old, lame, seeing nothing,
probably a little deaf — how many good qualities! It would
have been difficult to replace him.

The goodman, with the assurance of one who feels that he
is appreciated, began before the reverend prioress a rustic
harangue, quite diffuse and very profound. He spoke at length
of his age, his infirmities, of the weight of years henceforth
doubly heavy upon him, of the growing demands of his work,
of the size of the garden, of the nights to be spent, like last night
for example, when he had to put awnings over the melons on
account of the moon; and he finally ended with this: "that
he had a brother — (the prioress gave a start) — a brother not
young — (second start of the prioress, but a reassured start)
— that if it was desired, this brother could come and live with
him and help him; that he was an excellent gardener; that
the community would get good services from him, better than
his own; that, otherwise, if his brother were not admitted,
as he, the oldest, felt that he was broken down, and unequal
to the labour, he would be obliged to leave, though with much
regret; and that his brother had a little girl that he would bring
with him, who would be reared under God in the house, and who,
perhaps, — who knows ? — would some day become a nun.

510 Les Miserables

When he had finished, the prioress stopped the sliding of her
rosary through her fingers, and said :

" Can you, between now and night, procure a strong iron
bar ? "

" For what work? "

" To be used as a lever? "

" Yes, reverend mother/' answered Fauchelevent.

The prioress, without adding a word, arose, and went into
the next room, which was the hall of the chapter, where the vocal
mothers were probably assembled: Fauchelevent remained
alone.

Ill

MOTHER INNOCENT

ABOUT a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and
resumed her seat.

Both seemed preoccupied. We report as well as we can the
dialogue that followed.

"Father Fauvent?"

" Reverend mother? "

" You are familiar with the chapel ? "

" I have a little box there to go to mass, and the offices."

" And you have been in the choir about your work? "

" Two or three times."

" A stone is to be raised."

"Heavy?"

" The slab of the pavement at the side of the altar."

" The stone that covers the vault? "

" Yes."

" That is a piece of work where it would be well to have two
men."

" Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you."

" A woman is never a man."

" We have only a woman to help you. Everybody does what
he can. Because Dom Mabillon gives four hundred and seven-
teen epistles of St. Bernard, and Merlonus Horstius gives only
three hundred and sixty-seven, I do not despise Merlonus
Horstius."

" Nor I either."

" Merit consists in work according to our strength. A cloister
is not a ship-yard."

Cosette 511

" And a woman is not a man. My brother is very strong. "

" And then you will have a lever."

" That is the only kind of key that fits that kind of door."

" There is a ring in the stone."

" I will pass the lever through it."

" And the stone is arranged to turn on a pivot."

" Very well, reverend mother, I will open the vault."

" And the four mother choristers will assist you."

" And when the vault is opened ? "

" It must be shut again."

"Is that all?"

" No."

" Give me your orders, most reverend mother."

" Fauvent, we have confidence in you."

" I am here to do everything."

" And to keep silent about everything."

" Yes, reverend mother."

" When the vault is opened ."

" I will shut it again."

" But before ."

" What, reverend mother? "

" Something must be let down."

There was silence. The prioress, after a quivering of the
under-lip which resembled hesitation, spoke:

"Father Fauvent?"

" Reverend mother? "

" You know that a mother died this morning."

" No."

" You have not heard the bell then? "

" Nothing is heard at the further end of the garden."

"Really?"

" I can hardly distinguish my ring."

" She died at daybreak."

" And then, this morning, the wind didn't blow my way."

" It is Mother Crucifixion. One of the blest.'"'

The prioress was silent, moved her lips a moment as in a
mental orison, and resumed :

" Three years ago, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion
at prayer, a Jansenist, Madame de Bethune, became orthodox."

" Ah ! yes, I hear the knell now, reverend mother."

" The mothers have carried her into the room of the dead,
which opens into the church."

" I know."

5 i 2 Les Mise rabies

" No other man than you can or must enter that room. Be
watchful. It would look well for a man to enter the room of
the dead!"

" Oftener."

"Eh?"

" Oftener."

"What do you say?"

" I say oftener."

" Oftener than what? "

"Reverend mother, I don't say oftener than what; I say
oftener."

" I do not understand you. Why do you say oftener? "

" To say as you do, reverend mother."

" But I did not say oftener."

" You did not say it; but I said it to say as you did."

The clock struck nine.

" At nine o'clock in the morning, and at all hours, praise and
adoration to the most holy sacrament of the altar/' said the
prioress.

" Amen ! " said Fauchelevent.

The clock struck in good time. It cut short that Oftener. It
is probable, that without it the prioress and Fauchelevent would
never have got out of that snarl.
' Fauchelevent wiped his forehead.

The prioress again made a little low murmur, probably sacred,
then raised her voice.

" During her life, Mother Crucifixion worked conversions ;
after her death, she will work miracles."

" She will ! " answered Fauchelevent, correcting his step, and
making an effort not to blunder again.

" Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother
Crucifixion. Doubtless, it is not given to everybody to die like
Cardinal de Berulle, saying the holy mass, and to breathe out
his soul to God, pronouncing these words : Hanc igitur oblationem.
But without attaining to so great happiness, Mother Crucifixion
had a very precious death. She had her consciousness to the
last. She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave
us her last commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you
could have been in her cell, she would have cured your leg by
touching it. She smiled. We felt that she was returning to
life in God. There was something of Paradise in that death."

Fauchelevent thought that he had been listening to a prayer.

" Amen ! " said he.

Cosette

5*3

" Father Fauvent, we must do what the dead wish."
The prioress counted a few beads on her chaplet. Fauche-
levent was silent. She continued:

" I have consulted upon this question several ecclesiastics
labouring in Our Lord, who are engaged in the exercise of clerical
functions, and with admirable results."

" Reverend mother, we hear the knell much better here than
in the garden."

" Furthermore, she is more than a departed one: she is a
saint."

" Like you, reverend mother."

" She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by the express
permission of our Holy Father, Pius VII."

" He who crowned the Emp Buonaparte."

For a shrewd man like Fauchelevent, the reminiscence was
untoward. Luckily the prioress, absorbed in her thoughts, did
not hear him. She continued :
" Father Fauvent? "
" Reverend mother? "

" St. Diodorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this
single word might be written upon his tomb: Acarus, which
signifies a worm of the dust; that was done. Is it true? "
" Yes, reverend mother."

" The blessed Mezzocane, Abbe" of Aquila, desired to be buried
under the gibbet; that was done."
" It is true."

" St. Terence, Bishop of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber,
requested to have engraved upon his tomb the mark which was
put upon the graves of parricides, in the hope that travellers
would spit upon his grave. That was done. We must obey
the dead."
" So be it."

" The body of Bernard Guidonis, who was born in France near
Roche Abeille, was, as he has ordered, and in spite of the king
of Castile, brought to the church of the Dominicans at Limoges,
although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy, in Spain. Can
this be denied? "

The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse.
" No, indeed, reverend mother."

A few beads of her chaplet were told over silently. The
prioress went on:

" Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be buried in the
coffin in which she has slept for twenty years."
r

514 Les Miserables

" That is right."

" It is a continuation of sleep."

" I shall have to nail her up then in that coffin."

" Yes."

" And we will put aside the undertaker's coffin ? "

" Precisely."

" I am at the disposal of the most reverend community. "

" The four mother choristers will help you."

" To nail up the coffin I don't need them."

" No. To let it down."

" Where? "

" Into the vault."

" What vault? "

" Under the altar."

Fauchelevent gave a start.

" The vault under the altar I "

" Under the altar."

" But "

" You will have an iron bar."

" Yes, but "

" You will lift the stone with the bar by means of the ring."

" But "

" We must obey the dead. To be buried in the vault under
the altar of the chapel, not to go into profane ground, to remain
in death where she prayed in life; this was the last request
of Mother Crucifixion. She has asked it, that is to say, com-
manded it."

" But it is forbidden."

" Forbidden by men, enjoined by God."

" If it should come to be known? "

" We have confidence in you."

" Oh ! as for me, I am like a stone in your wall."

" The chapter has assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I
have just consulted again and who are now deliberating, have
decided that Mother Crucifixion should be, according to her
desire, buried in her coffin under our altar. Think, Father
Fauvent, if there should be miracles performed here! what
glory under God for the community! Miracles spring from
tombs."

" But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the Health Com-
mission "

" St. Benedict II., in the matter of burial, resisted Constantino
Fogonatus."

Cosette

" However, the Commissary of Police - "

Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered
Gaul in the reign of Constantius, expressly recognised the right
of conventuals to be inhumed in religion, that is to say, under
the altar."

" But the Inspector of the Prefecture - "

"The world is nothing before the cross. Martin, eleventh
general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device: Stat
crux dum volvitur or bis."

" Amen," said Fauchelevent, imperturbable in this method
of extricating himself whenever he heard any Latin.

Any audience whatever is sufficient for one who has been too
long silent. On the day that the rhetorician Gymnastoras came
out of prison, full of suppressed dilemmas and syllogisms, he
stopped before the first tree he met with, harangued it, and put
forth very great efforts to convince it. The prioress, habitually
subject to the constraint of silence, and having a surplus in her
reservoir, rose, and exclaimed with the loquacity of an opened
mill-sluice :

" I have on my right Benedict, and on my left Bernard.
What is Bernard ? he is the first Abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines
in Burgundy is blessed for having been his birthplace. His
father's name was Tecelin, and his mother's Alethe. He began
at Citeaux, and ended at Clairvaux; he was ordained abbot by
the Bishop of Chalons-sur-Saone, Guillaume de Champeaux;
he had seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty
monasteries; he overthrew Abeilard at the Council of Sens in
1140, and Peter de Bruys and Henry his disciple, and another
heterodox set called the Apostolicals; he confounded Arnold
of Brescia, struck monk Ralph dumb, the slayer of the Jews,
presided in 1148 over the Council of Rheims, caused Gilbert de
la Poree, Bishop of Poitiers, to be condemned, caused Eon de
1'Etpile to be condemned, arranged the differences of princes,
advised the King, Louis the Young, counselled Pope Eugenius
III., regulated the Temple, preached the Crusade, performed
two hundred and fifty miracles in his lifetime, and as many as
thirty -nine in one day. What is Benedict? he is the patriarch
of Monte Cassino; he is the second founder of the Claustral
Holiness, he is the Basil of the West. His order has produced
forty popes, two hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen
hundred archbishops, four thousand six hundred bishops, four
emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six kings, forty-one queens,
three thousand six hundred canonised saints, and has existed

5.6

Les Miserables

for fourteen hundred years. On one side, St. Bernard; on the
other the agent of the Health Commission! On one side, St.
Benedict; on the other the sanitary inspector! The state,
Health Department, funeral regulations, rules, the administra-
tion, do we recognise these things? Anybody would be in-
dignant to see how we are treated. We have not even the right
to give our dust to Jesus Christ ! Your sanitary commission is
an invention of the revolution. God subordinated to the
commissary of police; such is this age. Silence, Fauvent !"

Fauchelevent, beneath this douche, was not quite at ease.
The prioress continued :

" The right of the convent to burial cannot be doubted by
anybody. There are none to deny it save fanatics and those
who have gone astray. We live in times of terrible confusion.
People are ignorant of what they ought to know, and know
those things of which they ought to be ignorant. They are
gross and impious. There are people in these days who do not
distinguish between the great St. Bernard and the Bernard
entitled des Pauvres Catholiques, a certain good ecclesiastic
who lived in the thirteenth century. Others blaspheme so far
as to couple the scaffold of Louis XVI. with the cross of Jesus
Christ. Louis XVI. was only a king. Let us then take heed
for God ! There are no longer either just or unjust. Voltaire's
name is known, and the name of Caesar de Bus is not known.
Nevertheless Caesar de Bus is in bliss and Voltaire is in torment.
The last archbishop, the Cardinal of Perigord, did not even know
that Charles de Gondren succeeded B6rulle, and Francis Bour-
goin, Gondren, and Jean Francois Senault, Bourgoin, and
Father de Sainte-Marthe, Jean Francois Senault. The name
of Father Cotton is known, not because he was one of the three
who laboured in the foundation of the Oratory, but because
he was the subject of an oath for the Huguenot King Henry IV.
St. Francois de Sales is popular with the world, because he
cheated at play. And then religion is attacked. Why?
Because there have been wicked priests, because Sagittaire,
Bishop of Gap, was a brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and
both were followers of Mammon. What does that amount to ?
Does that prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint and having
given half his cloak to a poor man ? The saints are persecuted.
Men shut their eyes to the truth. Darkness becomes habitual.
The most savage beasts are blind beasts. Nobody thinks of
hell in earnest. Oh! the wicked people! By the king, now
means, by the revolution. Men no longer know what is due to

Cosette 5 ! -7

the living or the dead. Holy death is forbidden. The sepulchre
is a civil affair. This is horrible. St. Leo II. wrote two letters
expressly, one to Peter Notaire, the other to the King of the
Visigoths, to combat and overthrow, upon questions touchin"
the dead, the authority of the ex-arch and the supremacy of the
emperor. Walter, Bishop of Chalons, in this matter made
opposition to Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magis-
tracy acceded to it. Formerly we had votes in the chapter
concerning secular affairs. The Abbot of Citeaux, general
of the order, was hereditary counsellor of the Parlement of
Burgundy. We do with our dead as we please. Is not the body
of St. Benedict himself in France in the Abbey of Fleury, called
St. Benedict sur Loire, though he died in Italy, at Monte Cassino,
on a Saturday, the 2ist of the month of March in the year 543 !
All this is incontestable. I abhor the Psallants, I hate the
Prayers, I execrate heretics, but I should detest still more
whoever might sustain the contrary of what I have said. You
have only to read Arnold Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemius
Maurolicus, and Dom Luke d'Achery."

The prioress drew breath, then turning towards Fauchelevent •
' Father Fauvent, is it settled ? "

" It is settled, reverend mother."
' Can we count upon you ? "
' I shall obey."
' It is well."
I am entirely devoted to the convent."

" It is understood, you will close the coffin. The sisters will
carry it into the chapel. The office for the dead will be said.
Then they will return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock
and midnight, you will come with your iron bar. All will be
done with the greatest secresy. There will be in the chapel
only the four mother choristers, Mother Ascension, and you."

" And the sister who will be at the post."

" She will not turn."

" But she will hear."

" She will not listen; moreover, what the cloister knows, the
world does not know."

There was a pause again. The prioress continued :

" You will take off your bell. It is needless that the sister at
the post should perceive that you are there."

" Reverend mother? "

" What, Father Fauvent? "

" Has the death-physician made his visit? w

5i 8 Les Miserables

" He is going to make it at four o'clock to-day. The bell
has been sounded which summons the death-physician. But
you do not hear any ring then ? "

" I only pay attention to my own."

" That is right, Father Fauvent."

" Reverend mother, I shall need a lever at least six feet long."

" Where will you get it? "

" Where there are gratings there are always iron bars. I have
my heap of old iron at the back of the garden."

"About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not
forget."

"Reverend mother?"

" What? "

" If you should ever have any other work like this, my brother
is very strong. A Turk."

" You will do it as quickly as possible."

" I cannot go very fast. I am infirm; it is on that account I
need help. I limp."

" To limp is not a crime, and it may be a blessing. The
Emperor Henry II., who fought the Antipope Gregory, and
re-established Benedict VIII., has two surnames: the Saint and
the Lame."

" Two surtouts are very good," murmured Fauchelevent, who,
in reality, was a little hard of hearing.

" Father Fauvent, now I think of it, we will take a whole hour.
It is not too much. Be at the high altar with the iron bar at
eleven o'clock. The office commences at midnight. It must all
be finished a good quarter of an hour before."

" I will do everything to prove my zeal for the community.
This is the arrangement. I shall nail up the coffin. At eleven
o'clock precisely I will be in the chapel. The mother choristers
will be there. Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would
be better. But no matter I I shall have my lever. We shall
open the vault, let down the coffin, and close the vault again.
After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government
will suspect nothing. Reverend mother, is this all so ? "

" No."

" What more is there, then? "

" There is still the empty coffin."

This brought them to a stand. Fauchelevent pondered.
The prioress pondered.

" Father Fauvent, what shall be done with the coffin ? "

" It will be put in the ground."

Cosette 519

"Empty?"

Another silence. Fauchelevent made with his left hand that
peculiar gesture, which dismisses an unpleasant question.

" Reverend mother, I nail up the coffin in the lower room in
the church, and nobody can come in there except me, and I will
cover the coffin with the pall."

"Yes, but the bearers, in putting it into the hearse and in
letting it down into the grave, will surely perceive that there
is nothing inside."

" Ah! the de ! " exclaimed Fauchelevent.

The prioress began to cross herself, and looked fixedly at the
gardener. Vil stuck in his throat.

He made haste to think of an expedient to make her forget the
oath.

" Reverend mother, I will put some earth into the coffin.
That will have the effect of a body."

" You are right. Earth is the same thing as man. So you
will prepare the empty coffin? "

" I will attend to that."

The face of the prioress, till then dark and anxious, became
again serene. She made him the sign of a superior dismissing
an inferior. Fauchelevent moved towards the door. As he
was going out, the prioress gently raised her voice.

" Father Fauvent, I am satisfied with you; to-morrow after
the burial, bring your brother to me, and tell him to bring his
daughter."

IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE APPEARANCE
OF HAVING READ AUSTIN CASTILLEJO

THE strides of the lame are like the glances of the one-eyed;
they do not speedily reach their aim. Furthermore, Fauche-
levent was perplexed. It took him nearly a quarter of an hour
to get back to the shanty in the garden. Cosette was awake.
Jean Valjean had seated her near the fire. At the moment when
Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was showing her the
gardener's basket hanging on the wall and saying to her :

" Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go
away from this house, but we shall come back, and we shall be
very well off here. The good man here will carry you out on
his back inside there. You will wait for me at a lady's. I shall

520 Les Miserables

come and find you. Above all, if you do not want the Thenar-
diess to take you back, obey and say nothing."

Cosette nodded her head with a serious look.

At the sound of Fauchelevent opening the door, Jean Valjean
turned.

" Well? "

" All is arranged, and nothing is," said Fauchelevent. " I
have permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in,
it is necessary to get you out. That is where the cart is blocked 1
For the little girl, it is easy enough."

" You will carry her out? "

" And she will keep quiet? "

" I will answer for it."

" But you, Father Madeleine? "

And, after an anxious silence, Fauchelevent exclaimed:

" But why not go out the way you came in? "

Jean Valjean, as before, merely answered: " Impossible."

Fauchelevent, talking more to himself than to Jean Valjean,
grumbled :

" There is another thing that torments me. I said I would
put in some earth. But I think that earth inside, instead of a
body, will not be like it; that will not do, it will shake about;
it will move. The men will feel it. You understand, Father
Madeleine, the government will find it out."

Jean Valjean stared at him, and thought that he was raving.

Fauchelevent resumed :

" How the d ickens are you going to get out? For all

this must be done to-morrow. To-morrow I am to bring you
in. The prioress expects you."

Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was a reward for
a service that he, Fauchelevent, was rendering to the community.
That it was a part of his duties to assist in burials, that he nailed
up the coffins, and attended the gravedigger at the cemetery.
That the nun who died that morning had requested to be buried
in the coffin which she had used as a bed, and interred in the
vault under the altar of the chapel. That this was forbidden
by the regulations of the police, but that she was one of those
departed ones to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress
and the vocal mothers intended to carry out the will of the
deceased. So much the worse for the government. That he,
Fauchelevent, would nail up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone
in the chapel, and let down the body into the vault. And that,
in return for this, the prioress would admit his brother into the

Cosettc 521

house as gardener and his niece as boarder. That his brother
was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That the
prioress had told him to bring his brother the next evening,
after the fictitious burial at the cemetery. But that he could
not bring M. Madeleine from the outside, if M. Madeleine were
not outside. That that was the first difficulty. And then that
he had another difficulty; the empty coffin."

" What is the empty coffin? " asked Jean Valjeaa.

Fauchelevent responded :

" The coffin from the administration."

" What coffin? and what administration? "

" A nun dies. The municipality physician comes and says :
there is a nun dead. The government sends a coffin. The next
day it sends a hearse and some bearers to take the coffin and
cany it to the cemetery. The bearers will come and take up
the coffin; there will be nothing in it."

" Put somebody in it."

" A dead body ? I have none."

" No."

" What then? "

" A living body."

"What living body?"

" Me," said Jean Valjean.

Fauchelevent, who had taken a seat, sprang up as if a cracker
had burst under his chair.

"You!"

" Why not? "

Jean Valjean had one of those rare smiles which came over him
like the aurora in a winter sky.

" You know, Fauchelevent, that you said : Mother Crucifixion
is dead, and that I added: and Father Madeleine is buried. It
will be so."

" Ah ! good, you are laughing, you are not talking seriously."

" Very seriously. I must get out ! "

" Undoubtedly."

" And I told you to find a basket and a cover for me also."

"Well!"

" The basket will be of pine, and the cover will be a black
cloth."

" In the first place, a white cloth. The nuns are buried in
white."

" Well, a white cloth."

" You are not like other men, Father Madeleine."

522 Les Miserables

To see such devices, which are nothing more than the savage
and foolhardy inventions of the galleys, appear in the midst
of the peaceful things that surrounded him and mingled with
what he called the " little jog-jog of the convent," was to
Fauchelevent an astonishment comparable to that of a person
who should see a seamew fishing in the brook in the Rue St.
Denis.

Jean Valjean continued:

" The question is, how to get out without being seen. This
is the means. But in the first place tell me, how is it done ?
where is this coffin? "

"The empty one?"

"Yes."

" Down in what is called the dead-room. It is on two trestles
and under the pall."

" What is the length of the coffin? "

" Six feet."

" What is the dead-room? "

" It is a room on the ground floor, with a grated window
towards the garden, closed on the outside with a shutter, and
two doors; one leading to the convent, the other to the church."

"What church?"

" The church on the street, the church for everybody? "

" Have you the keys of those two doors? "

" No. I have the key of the door that opens into the convent;
the porter has the key of the door that opens into the church."

" When does the porter open that door? "

" Only to let in the bearers, who come after the coffin ; as
Toon as the coffin goes out, the door is closed again."

" Who nails up the coffin? "

" I do."

" Who puts the cloth on it? "

" I do."

" Are you alone."

" No other man, except the police physician, can enter the
4ead-room. That is even written upon the wall."

" Could you, to-night, when all are asleep in the convent,
Aide me in that room? "

" No. But I can hide you in a little dark closet which opens
into the dead-room, where I keep my burial tools, and of which
I have the care and the key."

" At what hour will the hearse come after the coffin
to-morrow? "

Cosette

523

"About three o'clock in the afternoon. The burial takes
place at the Vaugirard cemetery, a little before night. It is
not very near."

" I shall remain hidden in your tool-closet all night and all
the morning. And about eating? I shall be hungry."
" I will bring you something."

" You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock."
Fauchelevent started back, and began to snap his fingers.
" But it is impossible I "

" Pshaw ! to take a hammer and drive some nails into a
board? "

What seemed unheard-of to Fauchelevent was, we repeat,
simple to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had been in worse straits!
He who has been a prisoner knows the art of making himself
small according to the dimensions of the place for escape.
The prisoner is subject to flight as the sick man is to the crisis
which cures or kills him. An escape is a cure. What does not
one undergo to be cured? To be nailed up and carried out in
a chest like a bundle, to live a long time in a box, to find air
where there is none, to economise the breath for entire hours,
to know how to be stifled without dying — that was one of the
gloomy talents of Jean Valjean.

Moreover, a coffin in which there is a living being, that
convict's expedient, is also an emperor's expedient. If we can
believe the monk Austin Castillejo, this was the means which
Charles V., desiring after his abdication to see La Plombes again
a last time, employed to bring her into the monastery of St.
Juste and to take her out again.
Fauchelevent, recovering a little, exclaimed:
" But how will you manage to breathe? "
" I shall breathe."

" In that box? Only to think of it suffocates me."
" You surely have a gimlet, you can make a few little holes
about the mouth here and there, and you can nail it without
drawing the upper board tight."
" Good 1 But if you happen to cough or sneeze? "
" He who is escaping never coughs and never sneezes."
And Jean Valjean added:

"Father Fauchelevent, I must decide: either to be taken
here, or to be willing to go out in the hearse."

Everybody has noticed the taste which cats have for stopping
and loitering in a half-open door. Who has not said to a cat:
Why don't you come in? There are men who, with an oppor-

524 Les Miserables

tunity half-open before them, have a similar tendency to remain
undecided between two resolutions, at the risk of being crushed
by destiny abruptly closing the opportunity. The over prudent,
cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more
danger than the bold. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating
nature. However, Jean Valjean's coolness won him over in
spite of himself. He grumbled :

" It is true, there is no other way."

Jean Valjean resumed :

" The only thing that I am anxious about, is what will be done
at the cemetery."

" That is just what does not embarrass me," exclaimed
Fauchelevent. " If you are sure of getting yourself out of the
coffin, I am sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-
digger is a drunkard and a friend of mine. He is Father Mes-
tienne. An old son of the old vine. The gravedigger puts the
dead in the grave, and I put the gravedigger in my pocket.
I will tell you what will take place. We shall arrive a little
before dusk, three-quarters of an hour before the cemetery
gates are closed. The hearse will go to the grave. I shall
follow; that is my business. I will have a hammer, a chisel,
and some pincers in my pocket. The hearse stops, the bearers
tie a rope around your coffin and let you down. The priest
says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy
water, and is off. I remain alone with Father Mestienne. He
is my friend, I tell you. One of two things; either he will be
drunk, or he will not be drunk. If he is not drunk, I say to
him: come and take a drink before the Good Quince is shut.
I get him away, I fuddle him; Father Mestienne is not long
in getting fuddled, he is always half way. I lay him under the
table, I take his card from him to return to the cemetery with,
and I come back without him. You will have only me to deal
with. If he is drunk, I say to him: be off. I'll do your work.
He goes away, and I pull you out of the hole."

Jean Valjean extended his hand, upon which Fauchelevent
threw himself with a rustic outburst of touching devotion.

" It is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well."

" Provided nothing goes amiss," thought Fauchelevent
" How terrible that would be! "

Cosette 525

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO BETA DRUNKARD TO BE
IMMORTAL

NEXT day, as the sun was declining, the scattered passers on the
Boulevard du Maine took off their hats at the passage of an
old-fashioned hearse, adorned with death's-heads, cross-bones,
and tear-drops. In this hearse there was a coffin covered with
a white cloth, upon which was displayed a large black cross
like a great dummy with hanging arms. A draped carriage,
in which might be seen a priest in a surplice, and a choir-boy
in a red calotte, followed. Two bearers in grey uniform with
black trimmings walked on the right and left of the hearse.
In the rear came an old man dressed like a labourer, who limped.
The procession moved towards the Vaugirard cemetery,
i Sticking out of the man's pocket were the handle of a hammer,
the blade of a cold chisel, and the double handles of a pair of
pincers.

The Vaugirard cemetery was an exception among the
cemeteries of Paris. It had its peculiar usages, so far that it
had its porte-cochere, and its small door which, in the quarter,
old people, tenacious of old words, called the cavalier door, and
the pedestrian door. The Bernardine-Benedictines of the Petit
Picpus had obtained the right, as we have said, to be buried
in a corner apart and at night, this ground having formerly
belonged to their community. The gravediggers, having thus
to work in the cemetery in the evening in summer, and at night
in winter, were subject to a peculiar discipline. The gates of
the cemeteries of Paris closed at that epoch at sunset, and,
this being a measure of municipal order, the Vaugirard ceme-
tery was subject to it like the rest. The cavalier door and
the pedestrian door were two contiguous gratings; near which
was a pavilion built by the architect Perronet, in which the
door-keeper of the cemetery lived. These gratings therefore
inexorably turned upon their hinges the instant the sun dis-
appeared behind the dome of the Invalides. If any grave-
digger, at that moment, was belated in the cemetery, his only
resource for getting out was his gravedigger's card, given him
by the administration of funeral ceremonies. A sort of letter-
box was arranged in the shutter of the gate-keeper's window.
The gravedigger dropped his card into this box, the gate-keeper

526

Les Miserables

heard it fall, pulled the string, and the pedestrian door opened.
If the gravedigger did not have his card, he gave his name;
the gate-keeper, sometimes in bed and asleep, got up, went to
identify the gravedigger, and open the door with the key; the
gravedigger went out, but paid fifteen francs fine.

This cemetery, with its peculiarities breaking over the rules,
disturbed the symmetry of the administration. It was sup-
pressed shortly after 1830. The Mont Parnasse Cemetery,
called the Cemetery of the East, has succeeded it, and has
inherited this famous drinking house let into the Vaugirard
cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted on a
board, which looked on one side upon the tables of the drinkers,
and on the other upon graves, with this inscription : The Good
Quince.

The Vaugirard cemetery was what might be called a decayed
cemetery. It was falling into disuse. Mould was invading it,
flowers were leaving it. The well-to-do citizens little cared to
be buried at Vaugirard; it sounded poor. Pere Lachaise is
very fine ! to be buried in Pere Lachaise is like having mahogany
furniture. Elegance is understood by that. The Vaugirard
cemetery was a venerable inclosure, laid out like an old French
garden. Straight walks, box, evergreens, hollies, old tombs
under old yews, very high grass. Night there was terrible.
There were some very dismal outlines there.

The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall
and the black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard
cemetery. The lame man who followed it was no other than
Fauchelevent.

The burial of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar,
the departure of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean into
the dead-room, all had been carried out without obstruction,
and nothing had gone wrong.

We will say, by the way, the inhumation of Mother Crucifixion
under the convent altar is, to us, a perfectly venial thing. It
is one of those faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had
accomplished it, not only without discomposure, but with an
approving conscience. In the cloister, what is called the
" government " is only an interference with authority, an
interference which is always questionable. First the rules;
as to the code, we will see. Men, make as many laws as you
please, but keep them for yourselves. The tribute to Csesar
is never more than the remnant of the tribute to God. A prince
is nothing in presence of a principle.

Cosettc 527

Fauchelevent limped behind the hearse,, very well satisfied.
His two twin plots, one with the nuns, the other with M. Made-
leine, one for the convent, the other against it, had succeeded
equally well. Jean Valjean's calmness had that powerful
tranquillity which is contagious. Fauchelevent had now no
doubt of success. What remained to be done was nothing.
Within two years he had fuddled the gravedigger ten times,
good Father Mestienne, a rubicund old fellow. Father Mestienne
was play for him. He did what he liked with him. He got
him drunk at will and at his fancy. Mestienne saw through
Fauchelevent's eyes. Fauchelevent's security was complete.

At the moment the convoy entered the avenue leading to the
cemetery, Fauchelevent, happy, looked at the hearse and
rubbed his big hands together, saying in an undertone:

"Here's a farce!"

Suddenly the hearse stopped; they were at the gate. It
was necessary to exhibit the burial permit. The undertaker
whispered with the porter of the cemetery. During this colloquy,
which always causes a delay of a minute or two, somebody, an
unknown man, came and placed himself behind the hearse at
Fauchelevent's side. He was a working-man, who wore a vest
with large pockets, and had a pick under his arm.

Fauchelevent looked at this unknown man.

" Who are you? " he asked.

The man answered :

" The gravedigger."

Should a man survive a cannon-shot through his breast, he
would present the appearance that Fauchelevent did.

" The gravedigger? "

" Yes."

"You!"

" Me."

" The gravedigger is Father Mestienne."

" He was."

"How! he was?"

" He is dead."

Fauchelevent was ready for anything but this, that a grave-
digger could die. It is, however, true; gravediggers themselves
die. By dint of digging graves for others, they open their own.

Fauchelevent remained speechless. He had hardly the
strength to stammer out:

" But it's not possible ! "

"It is so."

528

Les Miserables

" But," repeated he, feebly, " the gravedigger is Father
Mestienne."

" After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier.
Peasant, my name is Gribier."

Fauchelevent grew pale ; he stared at Gribier.

He was a long, thin, livid man, perfectly funereal. He
had the appearance of a broken-down doctor turned grave-
digger.

Fauchelevent burst out laughing.

" Ah! what droll things happen! Father Mestienne is dead.
Little Father Mestienne is dead, but hurrah for little Father
Lenoir ! You know what little Father Lenoir is ? It is the mug
of red for a six spot. It is the mug of Surene, zounds 1 real
Paris SurSne. So he is dead, old Mestienne! I am sorry for
it; he was a jolly fellow. But you too, you are a jolly fellow.
Isn't that so, comrade? we will go and take a drink together,
right away."

The man answered: " I have studied, I have graduated. I
never drink."

The hearse had started, and was rolling along the main
avenue of the cemetery.

Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped still more
from anxiety than from infirmity.

The gravedigger walked before him.

Fauchelevent again scrutinised the unexpected Gribier.

He was one of those men who, though young, have an old
appearance, and who, though thin, are very strong.

" Comrade! " cried Fauchelevent.

The man turned.

" I am the gravedigger of the convent."

" My colleague," said the man.

Fauchelevent, illiterate, but very keen, understood that he had
to do with a very formidable species, a good talker.

He mumbled out:

" Is it so, Father Mestienne is dead ? "

The man answered :

" Perfectly. The good God consulted his list of bills payable.
It was Father Mestienne's turn. Father Mestienne is dead."

Fauchelevent repeated mechanically.

" The good God."

" The good God," said the man authoritatively. " What the
philosophers call the Eternal Father; the Jacobins, the Supreme
Being."

Cosette 529

" Are we not going to make each other's acquaintance? "
stammered Fauchelevent.

" It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian."

" We are not acquainted as long as we have not drunk
together. He who empties his glass empties his heart. Come
and drink with me. You can't refuse."

" Business first."

Fauchelevent said to himself: I am lost.

They were now only a few rods from the path that led to the
nuns' corner.

The gravedigger continued :

" Peasant, I have seven youngsters that I must feed. As
they must eat, I must not drink."

And he added with the satisfaction of a serious being who is
making a sententious phrase:

" Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst."

The hearse turned a huge cypress, left the main path, took
a little one, entered upon the grounds, and was lost in a thicket.
This indicated the immediate proximity of the grave. Fauche-
levent slackened his pace, but could not slacken that of the
hearse. Luckily the mellow soil, wet by the winter rains, stuck
to the wheels, and made the track heavy.

He approached the gravedigger.

" They have such a good little Argenteuil wine," suggested
Fauchelevent.

" Villager," continued the man, " I ought not to be a grave-
digger. My father was porter at the Prytanee. He intended
me for literature. But he was unfortunate. He met with losses
at the Bourse, I was obliged to renounce the condition of an
author. However, I am still a public scribe."

" But then you are not the gravedigger? " replied Fauche-
levent, catching at a straw, feeble as it was.

" One does not prevent the other. I cumulate."

Fauchelevent did not understand this last word.

" Let us go and drink," said he.

Here an observation is necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever
was his anguish, proposed to drink, but did not explain himself
on one point; who should pay? Ordinarily Fauchelevent
proposed, and Father Mestienne paid. A proposal to drink
resulted evidently from the new situation produced by the fact
of the new gravedigger, and this proposal he must make ; but
the old gardener left, not unintentionally, the proverbial quarter

53° Les Miserables

an of hour of Rabelais in the shade. As for him, Fauchelevent,
however excited he was, he did not care about paying.

The gravedigger went on, with a smile of superiority :

" We must live. I accepted the succession of Father Mes-
tienne. When one has almost finished his classes, he is a
philosopher. To the labour of my hand, I have added the
labour of my arm. I have my little writer's shop at the Market
in the Rue de Sevres. You know ? the market of the Parapluies.
All the cooks of the Croix Rouge come to me ; I patch up their
declarations to their true loves. In the morning I write love
letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such is life, countryman."

The hearse advanced; Fauchelevent, full of anxiety, looked
about him on all sides. Great drops of sweat were falling from
his forehead.

" However," continued the gravedigger, " one cannot serve
two mistresses; I must choose between the pen and the pick.
The pick hurts my hand."

The hearse stopped.

The choir-boy got out of the mourning carriage, then the
priest.

One of the forward wheels of the hearse mounted on a little
heap of earth, beyond which was seen an open grave.

" Here is a farce ! " repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.

IN THE NARROW HOUSE

WHO was in the coffin ? We know. Jean Val jean.

Jean Valjean had arranged it so that he could live in it, and
could breathe a very little.

It is a strange thing to what extent an easy conscience gives
calmness in other respects. The entire combination pre-
arranged by Jean Valjean had been executed, and executed
well, since the night before. He counted, as did Fauchelevent,
upon Father Mestienne. He had no doubt of the result. Never
was a situation more critical, never calmness more complete.

The four boards of the coffin exhaled a kind of terrible peace.
It seemed as if something of the repose of the dead had entered
into the tranquillity of Jean Valjean.

From within that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had
followed, all the phases of the fearful drama which he was playing
with Death.

Cosette 531

Soon after Fauchelevent had finished nailing down the upper
board, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then wheeled
along. By the diminished jolting, he had felt that he was
passing from the pavement to the hard ground ; that is to say,
that he was leaving the streets and entering upon the boulevards.
By a dull sound, he had divined that they were crossing the
bridge of Austerlitz. At the first stop he had comprehended
that they were entering the cemetery; at the second stop he
had said : here is the grave.

He felt that hands hastily seized the coffin, then a harsh
scraping upon the boards; he concluded that that was a rope
which they were tying around the coffin to let it down into the
excavation.

Then he felt a kind of dizziness.

Probably the bearer and the gravedigger had tipped the coffin
and let the head down before the feet. He returned fully to
himself on feeling that he was horizontal and motionless. He
had touched the bottom.

He felt a certain chill.

A voice arose above him, icy and solemn. He heard pass
away, some Latin words which he did not understand, pro-
nounced so slowly that he could catch them one after
another:

" Qui dormiunt in terra pulvere, evigilabunt ; alii in vitam
ceternam, et alii in opprobrium, ut videant semper"

A child's voice said :

" De profundis."

The deep voice recommenced :

" Requiem <zternam dona ei, Domine"

The child's voice responded :

" Et lux perpetua luce at ei."

He heard upon the board which covered him something like
the gentle patter of a few drops of rain. It was probably the
holy water.

He thought: " This will soon be finished. A little more
patience. The priest is going away. Fauchelevent will take
Mestienne away to drink. They will leave me. Then Fauche-
levent will come back alone, and I shall get out. That will
take a good hour."

The deep voice resumed.

" Requiescat in pace."

And the child's voice said:

" Amen."

532 Les Miserables

Jean Valjean, intently listening, perceived something like
receding steps.

" Now there they go," thought he. " I am alone."

All at once he heard a sound above his head which seemed to
him like a clap of thunder.

It was a spadeful of earth falling upon the coffin.

A second spadeful of earth fell.

One of the holes by which he breathed was stopped up.

A third spadeful of earth fell.

Then a fourth.

There are things stronger than the strongest man. Jean
Valjean lost consciousness.

VII

IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE ORIGIN OF THE SAYING:
DON'T LOSE YOUR CARD

LET us see what occurred over the coffin in which Jean Val-
jean lay.

When the hearse had departed and the priest and the choir-boy
had got into the carriage, and were gone, Fauchelevent, who had
never taken his eyes off the gravedigger, saw him stoop, and grasp
his spade, which was standing upright in the heap of earth.
Hereupon, Fauchelevent formed a supreme resolve.
Placing himself between the grave and the gravedigger, and
folding his arms, he said :
"I'll pay for it!"

The gravedigger eyed him with amazement, and replied :
"What, peasant?"
Fauchelevent repeated :
' I'll pay for it."
'For what?"
' For the wine."
'What wine?"
' The Argenteuil."
' Where's the Argenteuil ? "
' At the Good Quince."
' Go to the devil ! " said the gravedigger.
And he threw a spadeful of earth upon the coffin.
The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt
himself stagger, and nearly fell into the grave. In a voice in

Cosette 533

which the strangling sound of the death-rattle began to be heard,
he cried :

" Come, comrade, before the Good Quince closes ! "

The gravedigger took up another spadeful of earth. Fauche-
levent continued :

" I'll pay," and he seized the gravedigger by the arm.

" Hark ye, comrade," he said, " I am the gravedigger of the
convent, and have come to help you. It's a job we can do at
night. Let us take a drink first."

And as he spoke, even while clinging desperately to this urgent
effort, he asked himself, with some misgiving : " And even
should he drink — will he get tipsy ? "

" Good rustic," said the gravedigger, " if you insist, I consent.
We'll have a drink, but after my work, never before it."

And he tossed his spade again. Fauchelevent held him.

" It is Argenteuil at six sous the pint ! "

" Ah, bah ! " said the gravedigger, " you're a bore. Ding-
dong, ding-dong, the same thing over and over again; that's
all you can say. Be off, about your business."

And he threw in the second spadeful.

Fauchelevent had reached that point where a man knows no
longer what he is saying.

" Oh ! come on, and take a glass, since I'm the one to pay,"
he again repeated.

" When we've put the child to bed," said the gravedigger.

He tossed in the third spadeful: then, plunging his spade
into the earth, he added:

" You see, now, it's going to be cold to-night, and the dead
one would cry out after us, if we were to plant her there without
good covering."

At this moment, in the act of filling his spade, the grave-
digger stooped low, and the pocket of his vest gaped open.

The bewildered eye of Fauchelevent rested mechanically on
this pocket, and remained fixed.

The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon, and there
was still light enough to distinguish something white in the
gaping pocket.

All the lightning which the eye of a Picardy peasant can
contain flashed into the pupils of Fauchelevent. A new idea
had struck him.

Without the gravedigger, who was occupied with his spadeful
of earth, perceiving him, he slipped his hand from behind into
the pocket, and took from him the white object it contained.

534 Les Miserables

The gravedigger flung into the grave the fourth spadeful.

Just as he was turning to take the fifth, Fauchelevent, looking
at him with imperturbable calmness, asked :

" By the way, my new friend, have you your card ? "

The gravedigger stopped.

" What card? "

" The sun is setting."

" Well, let him put on his night-cap."

" The cemetery-gate will be closed."

"Well, what then?"

" Have you your card ? "

" Oh 1 my card ! " said the gravedigger, and he felt in his
pocket.

Having rummaged one pocket, he tried another. From
these, he proceeded to try his watch-fobs, exploring the first,
and turning the second inside out.

" No 1 " said he, " no ! I haven't got my card. I must have
forgotten it."

" Fifteen francs fine! " said Fauchelevent.

The gravedigger turned green. Green is the paleness of
people naturally livid.

" Oh, good-gracious God, what a fool I ami " he exclaimed.
"Fifteen francs fine!"

" Three hundred-sou pieces," said Fauchelevent.

The gravedigger dropped his spade.

Fauchelevent's turn had come.

" Gomel come, recruit," said Fauchelevent, " never despair;
there's nothing to kill oneself about, and feed the worms.
Fifteen francs are fifteen francs, and besides, you may not have
them to pay. I am an old hand, and you a new one. I know
all the tricks and traps and turns and twists of the business.
I'll give you a friend's advice. One thing is clear — the sun is
setting — and the graveyard will be closed in five minutes."

" That's true," replied the gravedigger.

" Five minutes is not time enough for you to fill the grave —
it's as deep as the very devil — and get out of this before the
gate is shut."

" You're right."

" In that case, there is fifteen francs fine."

"Fifteen francs!"

" But you have time. . . . Where do you live? "

" Just by the barriere. Fifteen minutes' walk. Number 87
Rue de Vaugirard."

Cosette

535

" You have time, if you will hang your toggery about your
neck, to get out at once."

" That's true."

" Once outside of the gate, you scamper home, get your card,
come back, and the gatekeeper will let you in again. Having
your card, there's nothing to pay. Then you can bury your
dead man. I'll stay here, and watch him while you're gone, to
see that he doesn't run away."

" I owe you my life, peasant! "

" Be off, then, quick! " said Fauchelevent.

The gravedigger, overcome with gratitude, shook his hands,
and started at a run.

When the gravedigger had disappeared through the bushes,
Fauchelevent listened until his footsteps died away, and then,
bending over the grave, called out in a low voice:

" Father Madeleine ! "

No answer.

Fauchelevent shuddered. He dropped rather than clambered
down into the grave, threw himself upon the head of the coffin,
and cried out:

" Are you there ? "

Silence in the coffin.

Fauchelevent, no longer able to breathe for the shiver that
was on him, took his cold chisel and hammer, and wrenched off
the top board. The face of Jean Valjean could be seen in the
twilight, his eyes closed and his cheeks colourless.

Fauchelevent's hair stood erect with alarm; he rose to his
feet, and then tottered with his back against the side of the
grave, ready to sink down upon the coffin. He looked upon
Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless.

Fauchelevent murmured in a voice low as a whisper:

"He is dead!"

Then straightening himself, and crossing his arms so violently
that his clenched fists sounded against his shoulders, he
exclaimed :

" This is the way I have saved him ! "

Then the poor old man began to sob, talking aloud to himself
the while, for it is a mistake to think that talking to one's self
is not natural. Powerful emotions often speak aloud.

" It's Father Mestienne's fault. What did he die for, the
fool ? What was the use of going off in that way, just when no
one expected it? It was he who killed poor M. Madeleine.

536 Les Miserables

Father Madeleine ! He is in the coffin. He's settled. There's
an end of it. Now, what's the sense of such things? Good
God ! he's dead ! Yes, and his little girl — what am I to do with
her? What will the fruit-woman say ? That such a man could
die in that way. Good Heaven, is it possible ! When I think
that he put himself under my cart! . . . Father Madeleine!
Father Madeleine! Mercy, he's suffocated, I said so — but, he
wouldn't believe me. Now, here's a pretty piece of business!
He's dead — one of the very best men God ever made; aye, the
best, the very best! And his little girl! I'm not going back
there again. I'm going to stay here. To have done such a
thing as this ! It's well worth while to be two old greybeards,
in order to be two old fools. But, to begin with, how did he
manage to get into the convent — that's where it started. Such
things shouldn't be done. Father Madeleine! Father Made-
leine! Father Madeleine! Madeleine! Monsieur Madeleine!
Monsieur Mayor! He doesn't hear me. Get yourself out of
this now, if you please."

And he tore his hair.

At a distance, through the trees, a harsh grating sound was
heard. It was the gate of the cemetery closing.

Fauchelevent again bent over Jean Valjean, but suddenly
started back with all the recoil that was possible in a grave.
Jean Valj can's eyes were open, and gazing at him.

To behold death is terrifying, and to see a sudden restoration
is nearly as much so. Fauchelevent became cold and white as
a stone, haggard and utterly disconcerted by all these powerful
emotions, and not knowing whether he had the dead or the
living to deal with, stared at Jean Valjean, who in turn stared
at him.

" I was falling asleep," said Jean Valjean.

And he rose to a sitting posture.

Fauchelevent dropped on his knees.

" Oh, blessed Virgin! How you frightened mel "

Then, springing again to his feet, he cried :

" Thank you, Father Madeleine! "

Jean Valjean had merely swooned. The open air had
revived him.

Joy is the reflex of terror. Fauchelevent had nearly as much
difficulty as Jean Valjean in coming to himself.

"Then you're not dead! Oh, what good sense you have I
I called you so loudly that you got over it. When I saw you
with your eyes shut, I said, ' Well, there now ! he's suffocated 1 '

Cosette 537

I should have gone raving mad — mad enough for a strait-
jacket. They'd have put me in the Bicetre. What would
you have had me do, if you had been dead? And your little
girl! the fruit-woman would have understood nothing about
it! A child plumped into her lap, and its grandfather dead!
What a story to tell! By all the saints in heaven, what a
story ! Ah ! but you're alive — that's the best of it."

" I am cold," said Jean Valjean.

These words recalled Fauchelevent completely to the real
state of affairs, which were urgent. These two men, even when
restored, felt, without knowing it, a peculiar agitation and a
strange inward trouble, which was but the sinister bewilderment
of the place.

" Let us get away from here at once," said Fauchelevent.

He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew from it a flask
with which he was provided.

" But a drop of this first! " said he.

The flask completed what the open air had begun. Jean
Valjean took a swallow of brandy, and felt thoroughly restored.

He got out of the coffin, and assisted Fauchelevent to nail
down the lid again. Three minutes afterwards, they were out
of the grave.

After this, Fauchelevent was calm enough. He took his
time. The cemetery was closed. There was no fear of the
return of Gribier the gravedigger. That recruit was at home,
hunting up his " card," and rather unlikely to find it, as it was
in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without his card, he could not get
back into the cemetery.

Fauchelevent took the spade and Jean Valjean the pick, and
together they buried the empty coffin.

When the grave was filled, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:

" Come, let us go; I'll keep the spade, you take the pick."

Night was coming on rapidly.

Jean Valjean found it hard to move and walk. In the
coffin he had stiffened considerably, somewhat in reality like a
corpse. The anchylosis of death had seized him in that narrow
wooden box. He had, in some sort, to thaw himself out of the
sepulchre.

" You are benumbed," said Fauchelevent; " and what a pity
that I'm bandy-legged, or we'd run a bit."

" No matter! " replied Jean Valjean, " a few steps will put
my legs into walking order."

They went out by the avenues the hearse had followed*

538

Les Miserables

When they reached the closed gate and the porter's lodge,
Fauchelevent, who had the gravedigger's card in his hand,
dropped it into the box, the porter drew the cord, the gate
opened, and they went through.

" How well everything goes! " said Fauchelevent; " what a
good plan that was of yours, Father Madeleine ! "

They passed the Barri£re Vaugirard in the easiest way in the
world. In the neighbourhood of a graveyard, a pick and spade
are two passports.

The Rue de Vaugirard was deserted.

" Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent, as he went along,
looking up at the houses, " you have better eyes than mine —
which is number 87 ? "

" Here it is, now," said Jean Valjean.

" There's no one in the street," resumed Fauchelevent.
" Give me the pick, and wait for me a couple of minutes."

Fauchelevent went in at number 87, ascended to the topmost
flight, guided by the instinct which always leads the poor to the
garret, and knocked, in the dark, at the door of a little attic
room. A voice called :

"Come in!"

It was Gribier's voice.

Fauchelevent pushed open the door. The lodging of the
gravedigger was, like all these shelters of the needy, an unfur-
nished but much littered loft. A packing-case of some kind —
a coffin, perhaps — supplied the place of a bureau, a straw pallet
the place of a bed, a butter-pot the place of water-cooler, and
the floor served alike for chairs and table. In one corner, on a
ragged old scrap of carpet, was a haggard woman, and a number
of children were huddled together. The whole of this wretched
interior bore the traces of recent overturn. One would have
said that there had been an earthquake served up there " for
one." The coverlets were displaced, the ragged garments
scattered about, the pitcher broken, the mother had been weep-
ing, and the children probably beaten ; all traces of a headlong
and violent search. It was plain that the gravedigger had
been looking, wildly, for his card, and had made everything in
the attic, from his pitcher to his wife, responsible for the loss.
He had a desperate appearance.

But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry for the end of his
adventure, to notice this gloomy side of his triumph.

As he come in, he said :

" I've brought your spade and pick."

Cosette 539

Gribier looked at him with stupefaction.

" What, is it you, peasant? "

" And, to-morrow morning, you will find your card with the
gatekeeper of the cemetery."

And he set down the pick and the spade on the floor.

" What does all this mean? " asked Gribier.

" Why, it means that you let your card drop out of your
pocket; that I found it on the ground when you had gone;
that I buried the corpse; that I filled in the grave; that I
finished your job; that the porter will give you your card, and
that you will not have to pay the fifteen francs. That's what
it means, recruit ! "

"Thanks, villager!" exclaimed Gribier, in amazement.
" The next time I will treat."

VIII

SUCCESSFUL EXAMINATION

AN hour later, in the depth of night, two men and a child stood
in front of No. 62, Petite Rue Picpus. The elder of the men
lifted the knocker and rapped.

It was Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette.

The two men had gone to look for Cosette at the shop of the
fruiteress of the Rue de Chemin Vert, where Fauchelevent had
left her on the preceding evening. Cosette had passed the
twenty-four hours wondering what it all meant and trembling
in silence. She trembled so much that she had not wept, nor
had she tasted food nor slept. The worthy fruit-woman had
asked her a thousand questions without obtaining any other
answer than a sad look that never varied. Cosette did not let
a word of all she had heard and seen, in the last two days,
escape her. She divined that a crisis had come. She felt, in
her very heart, that she must be " good." Who has not ex-
perienced the supreme effect of these two words pronounced in
a certain tone in the ear of some little frightened creature,
" Don't speak ! " Fear is mute. Besides, no one ever keeps a
secret so well as a child.

But when, after those mournful four-and-twenty hours, she
again saw Jean Valjean, she uttered such a cry of joy that any
thoughtful person hearing her would have divined in it an
escape from some yawning gulf.

54° Les Miserablcs

Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew all the
pass-words. Every door opened before him.

Thus was that doubly fearful problem solved of getting out
and getting in again.

The porter, who had his instructions, opened the little side
door which served to communicate between the court and the
garden, and which, twenty years ago, could still be seen from
the street, in the wall at the extremity of the court, facing the
porte-cochere. The porter admitted all three by this door, and
from that point they went to this private inner parlour, where
Fauchelevent had, on the previous evening, received the orders
of the prioress.

The prioress, rosary in hand, was awaiting them. A mother,
with her veil down, stood near her. A modest taper lighted, or
one might almost say, pretended to light up the parlour.

The prioress scrutinised Jean Valjean. Nothing scans so
carefully as a downcast eye.

Then she proceeded to question:

" You are the brother? "

• " Yes, reverend mother," replied Fauchelevent.

" What is your name? "

Fauchelevent replied :

" Ultimus Fauchelevent! "

He had, in reality, had a brother named Ultimus, who was
dead.

" From what part of the country are you ? "

Fauchelevent answered :

" From Picquigny, near Amiens."

" What is your age? "

Fauchelevent answered :

" Fifty."

" What is your business? '*

Fauchelevent answered :

" Gardener."

" Are you a true Christian ? "

Fauchelevent answered :

" All of our family are such.'*

" Is this your little girl? "

Fauchelevent answered :

" Yes, reverend mother."

" You are her father? "

Fauchelevent answered :

" Her grandfather."

Coscttc 54 1

The mother said to the prioress in an undertone:

" He answers well."

Jean Valjean had not spoken a word.

The prioress looked at Cosette attentively, and then said,
aside to the mother —

" She will be homely."

The two mothers talked together very low for a few rmnutes
in a corner of the parlour, and then the prioress turned an.

" Father Fauvent, you will have another knee-cap and bell.
We need two, now." . .

So next morning, two little bells were heard tinkling in the
garden, and the nuns could not keep from lifting a corner of
their veils. They saw two men digging side by side, in the
lower part of the garden under the trees— Fauvent and another.
Immense event! The silence was broken, so far as to say—

" It's an assistant-gardener! "

The mothers added:

" He is Father Fauvent's brother."

In fact, Jean Valjean was regularly installed; he had to
leather knee-cap and the bell; henceforth he had his commission.
His name was Ultimus Fauchelevent.

The strongest recommendation for Cosette s admission had
been the remark of the prioress: She will be homely.

The prioress having uttered this prediction, immediately t
Cosette into her friendship and gave her a place in the schoo
building as a charity pupil.

There is nothing not entirely logical in this.

It is all in vain to have no mirrors in convents; women are
conscious of their own appearance; young girls who know that
they are pretty do not readily become nuns; the inclination to
the calling being in inverse proportion to good looks, more is
expected from the homely than from the handsome ones.
Hence a marked preference for the homely.

This whole affair elevated good old Fauchelevent greatly ; he
had achieved a triple success;-in the eyes of Jean Valj
whom he had rescued and sheltered; with the gravedigger,
Gribier, who said he had saved him from a fine; and, at
convent, which, thanks to him, in retaining the coffin of Mother
Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Caesar and satisfied God.
There was a coffin with a body in it at the Petit Picpus, and a
coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery. Public order
was greatly disturbed thereby, undoubtedly, but nobody per

542 Les Miserables

ceived it. As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent
was deep. Fauchelevent became the best of servants and the
most precious of gardeners.

At the next visit of the archbishop the prioress related the
affair to his grace, half by way of a confession and half as a
boast.

The archbishop, on returning from the convent, spoke of it
with commendation and very quietly to M. de Latil, the con-
fessor of Monsieur, and, subsequently, Archbishop of Rheims
and a cardinal. This praise and admiration for Fauchelevent
travelled far, for it went to Rome. We have seen a note
addressed by the then reigning pope, Leo XII., to one of his
relatives, Monsignore of the Papal Embassy at Paris, who bore
the same name as his own, Delia Genga. It contained these
lines: " It seems that there is in a convent in Paris, an excel-
lent gardener who is a holy man, named Fauvent." Not a
whisper of all this fame reached Fauchelevent in his shanty ; he
continued to weed and graft and cover his melon-beds without
being, in the least, aware of his excellence and holiness. He
had no more suspicion of his splendid reputation than any
Durham or Surrey ox whose picture is published in the London
Illustrated News with this inscription: " The ox which won the
premium at the cattle show"

THE CLOSE

COSETTE, at the convent, still kept silent. She very naturally
thought herself Jean Valj can's daughter. Moreover, knowing
nothing, there was nothing she could tell, and then, in any case,
she would not have told anything. As we have remarked,
nothing habituates children to silence like misfortune. Cosette
had suffered so much that she was afraid of everything, even to
speak, even to breathe. A single word had so often brought
down an avalanche on her head ! She had hardly begun to feel
re-assured since she had been with Jean Valj can. She soon
became accustomed to the convent. Still, she longed for
Catharine, but dared not say so. One day, however, she said
to Jean Valjean, " If I had known it, father, I would have
brought her with me."

Cosette, in becoming a pupil at the convent, had to assume
the dress of the school girls. Jean Valjean succeeded in having

Cosettc 543

the garments which she laid aside, given to him. It was the
same mourning suit he had carried for her to put on when she
left the Thenardiers. It was not much worn. Jean Valjean
rolled up these garments, as well as the woollen stockings and
shoes, with much camphor and other aromatic substances of
which there is such an abundance in convents, and packed them
in a small valise which he managed to procure. He put this
valise in a chair near his bed, and always kept the key of it in
his pocket.

" Father," Cosette one day asked him, " what is that box
there that smells so good? "

Father Fauchelevent, besides the "glory" we have just
described, and of which he was unconscious, was recompensed
for his good deed; in the first place it made him happy, and
then he had less work to do, as it was divided. Finally, as he
was very fond of tobacco, he found the presence of M. Madeleine
advantageous in another point of view; he took three times as
much tobacco as before, and that too in a manner infinitely
more voluptuous, since M. Madeleine paid for it. The nuns did
not adopt the name of Ultimus ; they called Jean Valjean the
other Fauvent.

If those holy women had possessed aught of the discrimination
of Javert, they might have remarked, in course of time, that
when there was any little errand to run outside for on account
of the garden, it was always the elder Fauchelevent, old, infirm,
and lame as he was, who went, and never the other; but;
whether it be that eyes continually fixed upon God cannot play
the spy, or whether they were too constantly employed in
watching one another, they noticed nothing.

However, Jean Valjean was well satisfied to keep quiet and
still. Javert watched the quarter for a good long month.

The convent was to Jean Valjean like an island surrounded
by wide waters. These four walls were, henceforth, the world
to him. Within them he could see enough of the sky to be calm,
and enough of Cosette to be happy.

A very pleasant life began again for him.

He lived with Fauchelevent in the out-building at the foot of
the garden. This petty structure, built of rubbish, which was
still standing in 1845, consisted, as we have already stated, of
three rooms, all of which were bare to the very walls,
principal one had been forcibly pressed upon M. Madeleine by
Fauchelevent, for Jean Valjean had resisted in vam._ The wall
of this room, besides the two nails used for hanging up the

544

Les Miserables

knee-leather and the hoe, was decorated with a royalist specimen
of paper-money of '93, pasted above the fireplace, of which the
following is a counterpart :

X X

X Armee Catholique X

X X

De par la Roi

Bon

commercable de dix LIVRES.

•pour objets fournis a I'armee

remboursable a la paix.

S£rie 3. No. 10390.

* *

Stofflet.

X X

X et Royale X

X X

This Vendean assignat had been tacked to the wall by the
preceding gardener, a former member of the Chouan party, who
had died at the convent, and whom Fauchelevent had succeeded.

Jean Valjean worked every day in the garden, and was very
useful there. He had formerly been a prurier, and now found
it quite in his way to be a gardener. It may be remembered
that he knew all kinds of receipts and secrets of field-work.
These he turned to account. Nearly all the orchard trees were
• wild stock; he grafted them and made them bear excellent fruit.

Cosette was allowed to come every day, and pass an hour
with him. As the sisters were melancholy, and he was kind,
the child compared him with them, and worshipped him.
Every day, at the hour appointed, she would hurry to the little
building. When she entered the old place, she filled it with
Paradise. Jean Valjean basked in her presence and felt his
own happiness increase by reason of the happiness he conferred
on Cosette. The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting
peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other
reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever. At the
hours of recreation, Jean Valjean from a distance watched her
playing and romping, and he could distinguish her laughter
from the laughter of the rest.

For, now, Cosette laughed.

Even Cosette's countenance had, in a measure, changed.
The gloomy cast had disappeared. Laughter is sunshine; it
chases winter from the human face.

Cosette 545

When the recreation was over and Cosette went in, Jean
Valjean watched the windows of her schoolroom, and, at night,
would rise from his bed to take a look at the windows of the
room in which she slept.

God has his own ways. The convent contributed, like
Cosette, to confirm and complete, in Jean Valjean, the work of
the bishop. It cannot be denied that one of virtue's phases
ends in pride. Therein is a bridge built by the Evil One. Jean
Valjean was, perhaps, without knowing it, near that very phase
of virtue, and that very bridge, when Providence flung him
into the convent of the Petit Picpus. So long as he compared
himself only with the bishop, he found himself unworthy and
remained humble; but, for some time past, he had been com-
paring himself with the rest of men, and pride was springing
up in him. Who knows? He might have finished by going
gradually back to hate.

The convent stopped him on this descent.

It was the second place of captivity he had seen. In his
youth, in what had been for him the commencement of life,
and, later, quite recently too, he had seen another, a frightful
place, a terrible place, the severities of which had always seemed
to him to be the iniquity of public justice and the crime of the
law. Now, after having seen the galleys, he saw the cloister,
and reflecting that he had been an inmate of the galleys, and
that he now was, so to speak, a spectator of the cloister, he
anxiously compared them in his meditations with anxiety.

Sometimes he would lean upon his spade and descend slowly
along the endless rounds of reverie.

He recalled his former companions, and how wretched they
were. They rose at dawn and toiled until night. Scarcely
allowed to sleep, they lay on camp-beds, and were permitted to
have mattresses but two inches thick in halls which were
warmed only during the most inclement months. They were
attired in hideous red sacks, and had given to them, as a favour,
a pair of canvas pantaloons in the heats of midsummer, and a
square of woollen stuff to throw over their shoulders, during the
bitterest frosts of winter. They had no wine to drink, no meat
for food excepting when sent upon " extra hard work." They
lived without names, distinguished solely by numbers, and
reduced, as it were, to ciphers, lowering their eyes, lowering
their voices, with their hair cropped close, under the rod, and
plunged in shame.

Then, his thoughts reverted to the beings before his eyes.
i s

546 Les Miserablcs

These beings, also, lived with their hair cut close, their eyes
bent down, their voices hushed, not in shame indeed, but amid
the scoffs of the world; not with their backs bruised by the
gaoler's staff, but with their shoulders lacerated by self-inflicted
penance. Their names, too, had perished from among men,
and they now existed under austere designations alone. They
never ate meat and never drank wine; they often remained
until evening without food. They were attired not in red sacks,
but in black habits of woollen, heavy in summer, light in winter,
unable to increase or diminish them, without even the privilege,
according to the season, of substituting a linen dress or a woollen
cloak, and then, for six months in the year, they wore under-
clothing of serge which fevered them. They dwelt not in
dormitories warmed only in the bitterest frosts of winter, but
in cells where fire was never kindled. They slept not on mat-
tresses two inches thick, but upon straw. Moreover, they were
not even allowed to sleep, for, every night, after a day of labour,
they were, when whelmed beneath the weight of the first sleep,
at the moment when they were just beginning to slumber, and,
with difficulty, to collect a little warmth, required to waken,
rise and assemble for prayers in an icy-cold and gloomy chapel,
with their knees on the stone pavement.

On certain days, each one of these beings, in her turn, had to
remain twelve hours in succession kneeling upon the flags, or
prostrate on her face, with her arms crossed.

The others were men, these were women. What had these
men done? They had robbed, ravished, plundered, killed,
assassinated. They were highwaymen, forgers, poisoners, incen-
diaries, murderers, parricides. What had these women done?
They had done nothing.

On one side, robbery, fraud, imposition, violence, lust,
homicide, every species of sacrilege, every description of offence;
on the other, one thing only, — innocence.

A perfect innocence almost borne upwards in a mysterious
Assumption, clinging still to Earth through virtue, already
touching Heaven through holiness.

On the one hand, the mutual avowal of crimes detailed with
bated breath; on the other, faults confessed aloud. And oh!
what crimes ! and oh ! what faults !

On one side foul miasma, on the other, ineffable perfume.
On the one side, a moral pestilence, watched day and night,
held in subjection at the cannon's mouth, and slowly consuming
its infected victims; on the other, a chaste kindling of every

Cosette 547

soul together on the same hearthstone. There, utter gloom;
here, the shadow, but a shadow full of light, and the light full
of glowing radiations.

Two seats of slavery; but, in the former, rescue possible, a
legal limit always in view, and, then, escape. In the second,
perpetuity, the only hope at the most distant boundary of the
future, that gleam of liberty which men call death.

In the former, the captives were enchained by chains only;
in the other, they were enchained by faith alone.

What resulted from the first? One vast curse, the gnashing
of teeth, hatred, desperate depravity, a cry of rage against
human society, a sarcasm against heaven.

What issued from the second ? Benediction and love.

And, in these two places, so alike and yet so different, these
two species of beings so dissimilar were performing the same
work of expiation.

Jean Valjean thoroughly comprehended the expiation of the
first; personal expiation, expiation for oneself. But, he did
not understand that of the others, of these blameless, spotless
creatures, and he asked himself with a tremor: " Expiation of
what? What expiation ?"

A voice responded in his conscience: the most divine of all
human generosity, expiation for others.

Here we withhold all theories of our own: we are but the
narrator; at Jean Val jean's point of view we place ourselves
and we merely reproduce his impressions.

He had before his eyes the sublime summit of self-denial, the
loftiest possible height of virtue; innocence forgiving men their
sins and expiating them in their stead; servitude endured,
torture accepted, chastisement and misery invoked by souls
that had not sinned in order that these might not fall upon
souls which had; the love of humanity losing itself in the love
of God, but remaining there, distinct and suppliant; sweet,
feeble beings supporting all the torments of those who are
punished, yet retaining the smile of those who are rewarded.
And then he remembered that he had dared to complain.

Often, in the middle of the night, he would rise from his bed
to listen to the grateful anthem of these innocent beings thus
overwhelmed with austerities, and he felt the blood run cold in
his veins as he reflected that they who were justly punished.
never raised their voices towards Heaven excepting to blaspheme,
and that he, wretch that he was, had uplifted his clenched fist
against God.

548

Les Miserables

Another strange thing which made him muse and meditate
profoundly seemed like an intimation whispered in his ear by
Providence itself: the scaling of walls, the climbing over
inclosures, the risk taken in defiance of danger or death, the
difficult and painful ascent — all those very efforts that he had
made to escape from the other place of expiation, he had made
to enter this one. Was this an emblem of his destiny ?

This house, also, was a prison, and bore dismal resemblance
to the other from which he had fled, and yet he had never
conceived anything like it.

He once more saw gratings, bolts and bars of iron — to shut
in whom? Angels.

Those lofty walls which he had seen surrounding tigers, he
now saw encircling lambs.

It was a place of expiation, not of punishment; and yet it
was still more austere, more sombre and more pitiless than the
other. These virgins were more harslily bent down than the
convicts. A harsh, cold blast, the blast that had frozen his
youth, careered across that grated moat and manacled the
vultures ; but a wind still more biting and more cruel beat upon
the dove cage.

And why?

When he thought of these things, all that was in him gave
way before this mystery of sublimity. In these meditations,
pride vanished. He reverted, again and again, to himself; he
felt his own pitiful unworthiness, and often wept. All that had
occurred in his existence, for the last six months, led him back
towards the holy injunctions of the bishop; Cosette through
love, the convent through humility.

Sometimes, in the evening, about dusk, at the hour when the
garden was solitary, he was seen kneeling, in the middle of the
walk that ran along the chapel, before the window through
which he had looked, on the night of his first arrival, turned
towards the spot where he knew that the sister who was per-
forming the reparation was prostrate in prayer. Thus he prayed
kneeling before this sister.

It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God.

Everything around him, this quiet garden, these balmy
flowers, these children, shouting with joy, these meek and
simple women, this silent cloister, gradually entered into all his
being, and, little by little, his soul subsided into silence like this
cloister, into fragrance like these flowers, into peace like this
garden, into simplicity like these women, into joy like these

Cosette 549

children. And then he reflected that two houses of God had
received him in succession at the two critical moments of his
life, the first when every door was closed and human society
repelled him; the second, when human society again howled
upon hrs track, and the galleys once more gaped for him; and
that, had it not been for the first, he should have fallen back
into crime, and, had it not been for the second, into punishment.

His whole heart melted in gratitude, and he loved more and
more.

Several years passed thus. Cosette was growing.

MARIUS

BOOK FIRST— PARIS ATOMISED
I

PARVULUS

PARIS has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called
the sparrow; the child is called the gamin.

Couple these two ideas, the one containing all the heat of the
furnace, the other all the light of the dawn; strike together
these two sparks, Paris and infancy: and there leaps forth from
them a little creature. Homuncio, Plautus would say.

This little creature is full of joy. He has not food to eat
every day, yet he goes to the show every evening, if he sees fit.
He has no shirt to his back, no shoes to his feet, no roof over
his head; he is like the flies in the air who have none of all
these things. He is from seven to thirteen years of age, lives
in troops, ranges the streets, sleeps in the open air, wears an
old pair of his father's pantaloons down about his heels, an old
hat of some other father, which covers his ears, and a single
suspender of yellow listing, runs about, is always on the watch
and on the search, kills time, colours pipes, swears like an imp,
hangs about the wine-shop, knows thieves and robbers, is hand
in glove with the street-girls, rattles off slang, sings smutty
songs, and, withal, has nothing bad in his heart. This is
because he has a pearl in his soul, innocence; and pearls do
not dissolve in mire. So long as man is a child, God wills that
he be innocent.

If one could ask of this vast city: what is that creature?
She would answer: " it is my bantling."

SOME OF HIS PRIVATE MARKS

THE gamin of Paris is the dwarf of the giantess.

We will not exaggerate. This cherub of the gutter sometimes
has a shirt, but then he has only one ; sometimes he has shoes,

553

554 Les Miserables

but then they have no soles; sometimes he has a shelter, and
he loves it, for there he finds his mother; but he prefers the
street for there he finds his liberty. He has sports of his own,
roguish tricks of his own, of which a hearty hatred of the
bourgeois is the basis; he has his own metaphors; to be dead
he calls eating dandelions by the root; he has his own occupa-
tions, such as running for hacks, letting down carriage-steps,
sweeping the crossings in rainy weather, which he styles making
ponts des arts, crying the speeches often made by the authorities
on behalf of the French people, and digging out the streaks
between the flags of the pavement; he has his own kind of
money, consisting of all the little bits of wrought copper that
can be found on the public thoroughfares. This curious coin,
which takes the name of scraps, has an unvarying and well
regulated circulation throughout this little gipsy-land of children.

He has a fauna of his own, which he studies carefully in the
corners; the good God's bug, the death's head grub, the mower,
the devil, a black insect that threatens you by twisting about
its tail which is armed with two horns. He has his fabulous
monster which has scales on its belly, and yet is not a lizard,
has warts on its back, and yet is not a toad, which lives in the
crevices of old lime-kilns and dry-cisterns, a black, velvety,
slimy, crawling creature, sometimes swift and sometimes slow
of motion, emitting no cry, but which stares at you, and is so
terrible that nobody has ever seen it; this monster he calls the
" deaf thing." Hunting for deaf things among the stones is a
pleasure which is thrillingly dangerous. Another enjoyment is
to raise a flag of the pavement suddenly and see the wood-lice.
Every region of Paris is famous for the discoveries which can
be made in it. There are earwigs in the wood-yards of the
Ursulines, there are wood-lice at the Pantheon, and tadpoles in
the ditches of the Champ-de-Mars.

In repartee, this youngster is as famous as Talleyrand. He
is equally cynical, but he is more sincere. He is gifted with an
odd kind of unpremeditated jollity; he stuns the shopkeeper
with his wild laughter. His gamut slides merrily from high
comedy to farce.

A funeral is passing. There is a doctor in the procession.
" Hullo ! " shouts a gamin, " how long is it since the doctors
began to take home their work ? "

Another happens to be in a crowd. A grave-looking man,
who wears spectacles and trinkets, turns upon him indignantly :
" You scamp, you've been seizing my wife's waist! "

" I. sir ! search me ! "

Marius 555

III

HE IS AGREEABLE

IN the evening, by means of a few pennies which he always
manages to scrape together, the homuncio goes to some theatre.
By the act of passing that magic threshold, he becomes trans-
figured; he was a gamin, he becomes a titi. Theatres are a
sort of vessel turned upside down with the hold at the top ; in
this hold the titi gather in crowds. The titi is to the gamin
what the butterfly is to the grub; the same creature on wings
and sailing through the air. It is enough for him to be there
with his radiance of delight, his fulness of enthusiasm and joy,
and his clapping of hands like the clapping of wings, to make
that hold, close, dark, foetid, filthy, unwholesome, hideous, and
detestable, as it is, a very Paradise.

Give to a being the useless, and deprive him of the needful,
and you have the gamin.

The gamin is not without a certain inclination towards
literature. His tendency, however — we say it with the befitting
quantum of regret — would not be considered as towards the
classic. He is, in his nature, but slightly academic. For
instance, the popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among this little
public of children was spiced with a touch of irony. The gamin
called her Mademoiselle Muche.

This being jeers, wrangles., sneers, jangles, has frippery like a
baby and rags like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in
the drain, extracts gaiety from filth, lashes the street comers
with his wit, fleers and bites, hisses and sings, applauds and
hoots, tempers Hallelujah with turalural, psalmodises all sorts
of rhythms from De Profundis to the Chie-en-lit, finds without
searching, knows what he does not know, is Spartan even to
roguery, is witless even to wisdom, is lyric even to impurity,
would squat upon Olympus, wallows in the dung-heap and
comes out of it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is an
urchin Rabelais.

He is never satisfied with his pantaloons unless they have a
watch-fob.

He is seldom astonished, is frightened still less frequently,
turns superstitions into doggerel verses and sings them, collapses
exaggerations, makes light of mysteries, sticks out his^ tongue at
ghosts, dismounts everything that is on stilts, and introduces

556 Les Miserables

caricature into all epic pomposities. This is not because he is
prosaic, far from it; but he substitutes the phantasmagoria of
fun for solemn dreams. Were Adamaster to appear to him,
he would shout out: " Hallo, there, old Bug-a-bool "

PARIS begins with the cockney and ends with the gamin, two
beings of which no other city is capable; passive acceptation
satisfied with merely looking on, and exhaustless enterprise :
Prudhomme and Fouillou. Paris alone comprises this in its
natural history. All monarchy is comprised in the cockney:
all anarchy in the gamin.

This pale child of the Paris suburbs lives, develops, and gets
into and out of " scrapes," amid suffering, a thoughtful witness
of our social realities and our human problems. He thinks
himself careless, but he is not. He looks on, ready to laugh;
ready, also, for something else. Whoever ye are who call
yourselves Prejudice, Abuse, Ignominy, Oppression, Iniquity,
Despotism, Injustice, Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the
gaping gamin.

This little fellow will grow.

Of what clay is he made ? Of the first mud of the street. A
handful of common soil, a breath and, behold, Adam I It is
enough that a God but pass. A God always has passed where
the gamin is. Chance works in the formation of this little
creature. By this word chance we mean, in some degree, hazard.
Now, will this pigmy, thoroughly kneaded with the coarse
common earth, ignorant, illiterate, wild, vulgar, mobbish, as he
is, become an Ionian, or a Boeotian ? Wait, currit rota, the life
of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and
the men of destiny, reversing the work of the Latin potter,
makes of the jug a costly vase.

HIS FRONTIERS

THE gamin loves the city, he loves solitude also, having some-
thing of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus; runs
amator, like Flaccus.

Marius 557

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a
philosopher, a good way of spending time; especially in that
kind of mock rurality, ugly but odd, and partaking of two
natures, which surrounds certain large cities, particularly Paris.
To study the banlieue is to study the amphibious. End of
trees, beginning of houses, end of grass, beginning of pavement,
end of furrows, beginning of shops, end of ruts, beginning of
passions, end of the divine murmur, beginning of the human
hubbub; hence, the interest is extraordinary.

Hence, it is that in these by no means inviting spots which
are always termed gloomy, the dreamer selects his apparently
aimless walks.

He who writes these lines has long been a loiterer about the
Barriere of Paris, and to him it is a source of deepest remem-
brances. That close-clipped grass, those stony walks, that
chalk, that clay, that rubbish, those harsh monotonies of open
lots and fallow land, those early plants of the market gardeners
suddenly descried in some hollow of the ground, that mixture
of wild nature with the urban landscape, those wide unoccupied
patches where the drummers of the garrison hold their noisy
school and imitate, as it were, the lighter din of battle, those
solitudes by day and ambuscades by night, the tottering old
mill turning with every breeze, the hoisting-wheels of the stone-
quarries, the drinking shops at the corners of the cemeteries,
the mysterious charm of those dark high walls, which divide
into squares immense grounds, dimly seen in the distance, but
bathed in sunshine and alive with butterflies — all these
attracted him.

There is hardly anybody but knows those singular places, the
Glaciere, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle spotted with
balls, the Mont-Parnasse, the Fosse-aux-Loups, the white hazel
trees on the high banks of the Marne, Mont-Souris, the Tombe-
Issoire, the Pierre Plate de Chatillon where there is an old
exhausted quarry which is of no further use but as a place for
the growth of mushrooms, and is closed on a level with the
ground by a trap-door of rotten boards. The Campagna of
Rome is one idea; the banlieue of Paris is another; to see in
whatever forms our horizon, nothing but fields, houses, or trees,
is to be but superficial; all the aspects of things are thoughts
of God. The place where an open plain adjoins a city always
bears the impress of some indescribable, penetrating melan-
choly. There, nature and humanity address you at one and
the same moment. There, the originalities of place appear.

5S8

Les Miserables

He who, like ourselves, has rambled through these solitudes
contiguous to our suburbs, which one might term the limbo of
Paris, has noticed dotted about, here and there, always in the
most deserted spot and at the most unexpected moment, beside
some straggling hedge or in the corner of some dismal wall,
little helter-skelter groups of children, filthy, muddy, dusty,
uncombed, dishevelled, playing mumble-peg crowned with
violets. These are all the runaway children of poor families.
The outer boulevard is their breathing medium, and the banlieue
belongs to them. There, they play truant, continually. There
they sing, innocently, their collection of low songs. They are,
or rather, they live there, far from every eye, in the soft radiance
of May or June, kneeling around a hole in the ground, playing
marbles, squabbling for pennies, irresponsible, birds flown, let
loose and happy; and, the moment they see you, remembering
that they have a trade and must make their living, they offer
to sell you an old woollen stocking full of May-bugs, or a bunch
of lilacs. These meetings with strange children are among the
seductive but at the same time saddening charms of the environs
of Paris.

Sometimes among this crowd of boys, there are a few little
girls — are they their sisters? — almost young women, thin,
feverish, freckled, gloved with sunburn, with head-dresses of
rye-straw and poppies, gay, wild, barefooted. Some of them
are seen eating cherries among the growing grain. In the
evening, they are heard laughing. These groups, warmly
lighted up by the full blaze of noon-day, or seen dimly in the
twilight, long occupy the attention of the dreamer, and these
visions mingle with his reveries.

Paris, the centre; the banlieue, the circumference; to these
children, this is the whole world. They never venture beyond
it. They can no more live out of the atmosphere of Paris than
fish can live out of water. To them, beyond two leagues from
the barrieres there is nothing more. Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil,
Belleville, Aubervilliers, MenUmontant, Choisy-le-Roi, Billan-
court, Meudon, Issy, Vanvre, Sevres, Puteaux, Neuilly, Genne-
villiers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnieres, Bougival,
Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy,
Gonesse ; these are the end of the world,

Marius 559

A SCRAP OF HISTORY

AT the period, although it is almost contemporaneous, in which
the action of this story is laid, there was not, as there now is,
a police officer at every street-corner (an advantage we have no
time to enlarge upon); truant children abounded in Paris. The
statistics gave an average of two hundred and sixty homeless
children, picked up annually by the police on their rounds, in
open lots, in houses in process of building, and under the arches
of bridges. One of these nests, which continues famous, pro-
duced " the swallows of the bridge of Arcola." This, moreover,
is the most disastrous of our social symptoms. All the crimes
of man begin with the vagrancy of childhood.

We must except Paris, however. To a considerable degree,
and notwithstanding the reminiscence we have just recalled,
the exception is just. While in every other city, the truant
boy is the lost man; while, almost everywhere, the boy given
up to himself is, in some sort, devoted and abandoned to a
species of fatal immersion in public vices which eat out of him
all that is respectable, even conscience itself, the gamin of Paris,
we must insist, chipped and spotted as he is on the surface, is
almost intact within. A thing magnificent to think of, and one
that shines forth resplendently in the glorious probity of our
popular revolutions; a certain incorruptibility results from the
mental fluid which is to the air of Paris what salt is to the
water of the ocean. To breathe the air of Paris preserves the
soul.

What we here say alleviates, in no respect, that pang of the
heart which we feel whenever we meet one of these children,
around whom we seem to see floating the broken ties of the
disrupted family. In our present civilisation, which is still so
incomplete, it is not a very abnormal thing to find these dis-
ruptions of families, separating in the darkness, scarcely knowing
what has become of their children — dropping fragments of their
life, as it were, upon the public highway. Hence arise dark
destinies. This is called, for the sad chance has coined its own
expression, " being cast upon the pavement of Paris."

These abandonments of children, be it said, in passing, were
not discouraged by the old monarchy. A little of Egypt and
of Bohemia in the lower strata, accommodated the higher
spheres, and answered the purpose of the powerful. Hatred to

560 Les Miserables

the instruction of the children of the people was a dogma*
What was the use of " a little learning? " Such was the pass-
word. Now the truant child is the corollory of the ignorant
child. Moreover, the monarchy sometimes had need of
children, and then it skimmed the street.

Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king, very
wisely, desired to build up a navy. The idea was a good one.
But let us look at the means. Ne navy could there be, if, side
by side with the sailing vessel, the sport of the wind, to tow it
along, in case of need, there were not another vessel capable of
going where it pleased, either by the oar or by steam; the
galleys were to the navy, then, what steamers now are. Hence,
there must be galleys; but galleys could be moved only by
galley-slaves, and therefore there must be galley-slaves. Col-
bert, through the provincial intendants and the parlements,
made as many galley-slaves as possible. The magistracy set
about the work with good heart. A man kept his hat on
before a procession, a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the
galleys. A boy was found in the street; if he had no place to
sleep in, and was fifteen years old, he was sent to the galleys.
Great reign, great age.

Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police
carried them off — nobody knows for what mysterious use.
People whispered with affright horrible conjectures about the
purple baths of the king. Barbier speaks ingenuously of these
things. It sometimes happened that the officers, running short
of children, took some who had fathers. The fathers, in
despair, rushed upon the officers. In such cases, the parlement
interfered and hung — whom? The officers? No; the fathers*

VII

THE GAMIN WILL HAVE HIS PLACE AMONG THE
CLASSIFICATIONS OF INDIA

THE Parisian order of gamins is almost a caste. One might
say: nobody wants to have anything to do with them.

This word gamin was printed for the first time, and passed
from the popular language into that of literature, in 1834. It
was in a little work entitled Claude Gueux that the word first
appeared. It created a great uproar. The word was adopted.

The elements that go to make up respectability among the
gamins are very varied. We knew and had to do with one who

Marius 561

was greatly respected and admired, because he had seen a man
fall from the towers of Notre Dame; another, because he had
succeeded in making his way into the rear inclosure where the
statics intended for the dome of the Invalides were deposited,
and had scraped off some of the lead; a third, because he had
seen a diligence upset; and still another, because he knew a
soldier who had almost knocked out the eye of a bourgeois.

This explains that odd exclamation of a Parisian gamin, a
depth of lamentation which the multitude laugh at without
comprehending. " Oh, Lordy, Lordy I a'nt I unlucky!^ only
think I never even saw anybody fall from a fifth story ; " — the
words pronounced with an inexpressible twang of his own.

What a rich saying for a peasant was this ! " Father so-and-
so, your wife's illness has killed her; why didn't you send for a
doctor? " " What are you thinking about, friend? " says the
other. " Why, we poor people we haves to die ourselves" But,
if all the passiveness of the peasant is found in this saying, all
the rollicking anarchy of the urchin of the suburbs is contained
in the following: — A poor wretch on his way to the gallows was
listening to his confessor, who sat beside him in the cart. A
Paris boy shouted out: " He's talking to his long-gown. Oh,
the sniveller I "

A certain audacity in religious matters sets off the gamin.
It is a great thing to be strong-minded.

To be present at executions is a positive duty. These imps
point at the guillotine and laugh. They give it all kinds of
nicknames: "End of the Soup "— " Old Growler "— " Sky-
Mother "— " The Last Mouthful," etc., etc. That they may
lose nothing of the sight, they scale walls, hang on to balconies,
climb trees, swing to gratings, crouch into chimneys. The
gamin is a born slater as he is a born sailor. A roof inspires
him with no more fear than a mast. No festival is equal to
the execution-ground, — La Greve. Samson and the Abb6
Montes are the really popular names. They shout to the victim
to encourage him. Sometimes, they admire him. The gamin
Lacenaire, seeing the horrible Dautun die bravely, used an
expression which was full of future: " / was jealous of him I "
In the order of gamins Voltaire is unknown, but they _ are
acquainted with Papavoine. They mingle in the same recital,
" the politicals " with murderers. They have traditions of the
last clothes worn by them all. They know that ToUeron had
on a forgeman's cap, and that Avril wore one of otter skin; that
Louvel had on a round hat, that old Delaporte was bald and

562

Les Miserables

bareheaded, that Castaing was ruddy and good-looking, that
Bories had a sweet little beard, that Jean Martin kept on his
suspenders, and that Lecouffe and his mother quarrelled.
Don't be finding fault now with your basket, shouted a gamin to
the latter couple. Another, to see Debacker pass, being too
short in the crowd, began to climb a lamp-post on the quay.
A gendarme on that beat scowled at him. " Let me get up,
Mister Gendarme," said the gamin. And then, to soften the
official, he added: "I won't fall." "Little do I care about
your falling," replied the gendarme.

In the order of gamins, a memorable accident is greatly
prized. One of their number reaches the very pinnacle of
distinction, if he happen to cut himself badly, " into the bone/'
as they say.

The fist is by no means an inferior element of respect. One
of the things the gamin is fondest of saying is, " I'm jolly strong,
I am ! " To be left-handed makes you an object of envy.
Squinting is highly esteemed.

VIII

IN summer, he transforms himself into a frog; and in the
evening, at nightfall, opposite the bridges of Austerlitz and
Jena, from the coal rafts and washerwomen's boats, he plunges
head-foremost into the Seine, and into all sorts of infractions of
the laws of modesty and the police. However, the policemen
are on the look-out, and there results from this circumstance a
highly dramatic situation which, upon one occasion, gave rise
to a fraternal and memorable cry. This cry, which was quite
famous about 1830, is a strategic signal from gamin to gamin ;
it is scanned like a verse of Homer, with a style of notation
almost as inexplicable as the Eleusinian melody of the Pana-
thenseans, recalling once more the ancient " Evohe ! " It is as
follows: " Ohe 1 Titi, ohe I lookee yonder I they're comiri to
ketch ye 1 Grab yer clothes aud cut through the drain I "

Sometimes this gnat — it is thus that he styles himself — can
read; sometimes he can write; he always knows how to scrawl.
He gets by some unknown and mysterious mutual instruction,
all talents which may be useful in public affairs; from 1815 to
1830, he imitated the call of the turkey; from 1830 to 1848, he

Marius 563

scratched a pear on the walls. One summer evening, Louis
Philippe returning to the palace on foot, saw one of them, a
little fellow, so high, sweating and stretching upon tiptoe, to
make a charcoal sketch of a gigantic pear, on one of the pillars
of the Neuilly gateway; the king, with that good nature which
he inherited 'from Henry IV., helped the boy, completed the
pear, and gave the youngster a gold Louis, saying: " The pear's
on that, too ! " The gamin loves uproar. Violence and noise
please him. He execrates " the " cures. One day, in the Rue
de 1'Universite, one of these young scamps was making faces at
the porte-cochere of No. 69. " Why are you doing that at this
door? " asked a passer-by. The boy replied: " There's a cure
there." • It was, in fact, the residence of the Papal Nuncio.
Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairean tendencies of
the gamin, should an occasion present itself to become a choir-
boy, he would, very likely, accept, and in such case would serve
the mass properly. There are two things of which he is the
Tantalus, which he is always wishing for, but never attains— to
overthrow the government, and to get his trousers mended.

The gamin, in his perfect state, possesses all the policemen of
Paris, and, always, upon meeting one, can put a name to the
countenance. He counts them off on his fingers. He studies
their ways, and has special notes of his own upon each one of
them. He reads their souls as an open book. He will tell you
off-hand and without hesitating— Such a one is a traitor ; such
a one is very cross ; such a one is great, such a one is ridiculous ;
(all these expressions, traitor, cross, great and ridiculous, have
in his mouth a peculiar signification) — " That chap thinks the
Pont Neuf belongs to him, and hinders •people from walking on
the cornice outside of the parapets; that other one has a mania
for pulling persons' ears;" etc. etc.

THE ANCIENT SOUL OF GAUL

THERE was something of this urchin in Poquelin, the son of the
market-place; there was something of him in Beaumarchais.
The gamin style of life is a shade of the Gallic mind. Mingled
with good sense, it sometimes gives it additional strength, as
alcohol does to wine. Sometimes, it is a defect; Homer nods;
one might say Voltaire plays gamin. Camille Desmoulins was
a suburban. Championnet, who brutalised miracles, was a

Les Miserables

child of the Paris streets; he had when a little boy besprinkled
the porticoes of St. Jean de Beauvais and St. Etienne du Mont;
he had chatted with the shrine of St. Genevieve enough to
throw into convulsions the sacred vial of St. Januarius.

The Paris gamin is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has
bad teeth, because he is poorly fed, and his stomach suffers and
fine eyes because he has genius. In the very presence of
Jehovah, he would go hopping and jumping up the steps of
Paradise. He is very good at boxing with both hands and feet.
Every description of growth is possible to him. He plays in
the gutter and rises from it by revolt; his effrontery is not cured
by grape ; he was a blackguard, lo ! he is a hero ! like the little
Theban, he shakes the lion's skin; Barra the drummer was a
Paris gamin ; he shouts " Forward ! " as the charger of Holy
Writ says " Ha ! ha ! " and in a moment, he passes from the
urchin to the giant.

This child of the gutter is, also, the child of the ideal. Measure
this sweep of wing which reaches from Moliere to Barra.

As sum total, and to embrace all in a word, the gamin is a
being who amuses himself because he is unfortunate.

ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO

To sum up all once more, the gamin of Paris of the present day
is, as the grceculus of Rome was in ancient times, the people as
a child, with the wrinkles of the old world on its brow.

The gamin is a beauty and, at the same time, a disease of the
nation — a disease that must be cured. How? By light.

Light makes whole.

Light enlightens.

All the generous irradiations of society spring from science,
letters, the arts, and instruction. Make men, make men. Give
them light, that they may give you warmth. Soon or late, the
splendid question of universal instruction will take its position
with the irresistible authority of absolute truth ; and then those
who govern under the superintendence of the French idea will
have to make this choice : the children of France or the gamins
of Paris; flames in the light or will o' the wisps in the gloom.

The gamin is the expression of Paris, and Paris is the
expression of the world.

For Paris is a sum total. Paris is the ceiling of the human

Marius 565

race. All this prodigious city is an epitome of dead and living
manners and customs. He who sees Paris, seems to see all
history through with sky and constellations in the intervals.
Paris has a Capitol, the Hotel de Viile; a Parthenon, Notre
Dame; a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg St. Antoine; an
Asinarium, the Sorbonne; a Pantheon, the Pantheon; a Via
Sacra, the Boulevard desltaliens; a tower of the Winds; public
opinion— and supplies the place of the Gemoniae by ridicule.
Its majo is the " faraud," its Trasteverino is the suburban; its
hammal is the strong man of the market-place; its lazzarone is
the pegre; its cockney is the gandin. All that can be found
anywhere can be found in Paris. The fish-woman of Dumarsais
can hold her own with the herb-woman of Euripides, the
discobolus Vejanus lives again in Forioso the rope-dancer,
Therapontigonus Miles might go arm in arm with the grenadier
Vadeboncceur, Damasippus the curiosity broker would be happy
among the old curiosity shops, Vincennes would lay hold of
Socrates just as the whole Agora would clap Diderot into a
strong box; Grimod de la Reyniere discovered roast-beef
cooked with its own fat as Curtillus had invented roast hedge-
hog; we see, again, under the balloon of the Arc de 1'Etoile the
trapezium mentioned in Plautus; the sword-eater of the
Poecilium met with by Apuleius is the swaUower of sabres on
the Pont-Neuf; the nephew of Rameau and Curculion the
parasite form a pair; Ergasilus would get himself presented to
Cambaceres by d' Aigref euille ; the four dandies of Rome,
Alcesimarchus, Phoedromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippe, may be
seen going down la Courtille in the Labutat post-coach; Aulus
Gellius did not stop longer in front of Congrio than Charles
Nodier before Punch and Judy; Marton is not a tigress, but
Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the buffoon chaffs
Nomentanus the fast-liver at the Cafe Anglais; Hermogenus is
a tenor in the Champs Elys6es, and, around him, Thrasms the
beggar in the costume of Bobeche plies his trade; the bore who
buttonholes you in the Tuileries makes you repeat, after the
lapse of two thousand years, the apostrophe of Thespnon: guts
properantem me prehendit pallia 1 The wine of Surene parodies
the wine of Alba; the red rim of Desaugiers balances the huge
goblet of Balatron, Pere Lachaise exhales, under the nocturnal
rains, the same lurid emanations that were seen in the Esquihes,
and the grave of the poor purchased for five years, is about the
equivalent of the hired coffin of the slave.
Ransack your memory for something which Pans has not.

566

Les Miserables

The vat of Trophonius contains nothing that is not in the wash-
tub of Mesmer; Ergaphilas is resuscitated in Cagliostro; the
Brahmin Vasaphanta is in the flesh again in the Count Saint
Germain; the cemetery of St. Medard turns out quite as good
miracles as the Oumoumi6 mosque at Damascus.

Paris has an JEsop in Mayeux, and a Canidia in Mademoiselle
Lenormand. It stands aghast like Delphos at the blinding
realities of visions; it tips tables as Dodona did tripods. It
enthrones the grisette as Rome did the courtesan; and, in fine,
if Louis XV. is worse than Claudius, Madame Dubarry is better
than Messalina. Paris combines in one wonderful type which
has had real existence, and actually elbowed us, the Greek
nudity, the Hebrew ulcer, and the Gascon jest. It mingles
Diogenes, Job, and Paillasse, dresses up a ghost in old numbers
of the Constitutionnel, and produces Shadrac Duclos.

Although Plutarch may say : the tyrant never grows old, Rome,
under Sylla as well as under Domitian, resigned herself and of
her own accord put water in her wine. The Tiber was a Lethe,
if we may believe the somewhat doctrinal eulogy pronounced
upon it by Varus Vibiscus: Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus.
Bibere Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci. Paris drinks a
quarter of a million of gallons of water per day, but that does
not prevent it upon occasion from beating the alarm and
sounding the tocsin.

With all that, Paris is a good soul. It accepts everything
right royally; it is not difficult in the realms of Venus; its
Callipyge is of the Hottentot stamp; if it but laughs, it pardons,
ugliness makes it merry; deformity puts it in good humour,
vice diverts its attention; be droll and you may venture to be
a scamp; even hypocrisy, that sublimity of cynicism, it does
not revolt at; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose over
Basilius, and is no more shocked at the prayer of Tartuffe than
Horace was at the hiccough of Priapus. No feature of the
universal countenance is wanting in the profile of Paris. The
Mabile dancing garden is not the polyhymnian dance of the
Janiculum, but the costume-hirer devours the lorette there with
her eyes exactly as the procuress Staphyla watched the virgin
Planesium. The Barriere du Combat is not a Coliseum, but
there is as much ferocity exhibited as though Caesar were a
spectator. The Syrian hostess has more grace than Mother
Saguet, but, if Virgil haunted the Roman wine-shop, David
d' Angers, Balzac, and Charlet have sat down in the drinking-
places of Paris. Paris is regnant. Geniuses blaze on all sides,

Marius 567

and red perukes flourish. Adonais passes by in his twelve-
wheeled car of thunder and lightning; Silenus makes his entry
upon his tun. For Silenus read Ramponneau.

Paris is a synonym of Cosmos. Paris is Athens, Rome,
Sybaris, Jerusalem, Pantin. All the eras of civilisation are
there in abridged edition, all the epochs of barbarism also.
Paris would be greatly vexed, had she no guillotine.

A small admixture of the Place de Gr&ve is good. What
would all this continual merrymaking be without that season-
ing? Our laws have wisely provided for this, and, thanks to
them, this relish turns its edge upon the general carnival.

XI
RIDICULE AND REIGN

OF bounds and limits, Paris has none. No other city ever
enjoyed that supreme control which sometimes derides those
whom it reduces to submission. To please you, 0 Athenians 1
exclaimed Alexander. Paris does more than lay down the law;
it lays down the fashion; Paris does more than lay down the
fashion; it lays down the routine. Paris may be stupid if it
please; sometimes it allows itself this luxury; then, the whole
universe is stupid with it. Upon this, Paris awakes, rubs its
eyes, and says: " Am I stupid! " and bursts out laughing in
the face of mankind. What a marvel is such a city! how
strange a thing that all this mass of what is grand and what is
ludicrous should be so harmonious, that all this majesty is not
disturbed by all this parody, and that the same month can
to-day blow the trump of the last judgment and to-morrow a
penny whistle ; Paris possesses an all-commanding joviality. Its
gaiety is of the thunderbolt, and its frolicking holds a sceptre.
Its hurricanes spring sometimes from a wry face. Its outbursts,
its great days, its masterpieces, its prodigies, its epics fly to the
ends of the universe, and so do its cock and bull stories also.
Its laughter is the mouth of a volcano that bespatters the whole
earth. Its jokes are sparks that kindle. It forces upon the
nations its caricatures as well as its ideal; the loftiest monu-
ments of human civilisation accept its sarcasms and lend their
eternity to its waggeries. It is superb; it has a marvellous
Fourteenth of July that delivers the globe; it makes all the
nations take the oath of the tennis-court; its night of the
Fourth of August disperses in three hours a thousand years of

568 Les Miserables

feudalism; it makes of its logic the muscle of the unanimous
will; it multiplies itself under all the forms of the sublime; it
fills with its radiance Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, Botzaris,
Riego, Bern, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; it is every-
where, where the future is being enkindled, at Boston in 1779,
at the Isle de St. Leon in 1820, at Pesth in 1848, at Palermo
in 1860; it whispers the mighty watchword Liberty in the ears
of the American Abolitionists grouped together in the boat at
Harper's Ferry, and also in the ears of the patriots of Ancona
assembled in the gloom at the Archi, in front of the Gozzi
tavern, on the seaside; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga;
it creates Pisicane; it radiates greatness over the earth; it is
in going whither its breath impels, that Byron dies at Misso-
longhi, and Mazet at Barcelona; it is a rostrum beneath the
feet of Mirabeau, and a crater beneath the feet of Robespierre;
its books, its stage, its art, its science, its literature, its philo-
sophy are the manuals of the human race ; to it belong Pascal,
Regnier, Corneille, Descartes, Jean Jacques; Voltaire for every
moment, Moliere for every century; it makes the universal
mouth speak its language, and that language becomes the Word ;
it builds up in every mind the idea of progress; the liberating
dogmas which it forges are swords by the pillows of the gene-
rations, and with the soul of its thinkers and poets have all the
heroes of all nations since 1789 been made; but that does not
prevent it from playing the gamin ; and this enormous genius
called Paris, even while transfiguring the world with its radiance,
draws the nose of Bouginier in charcoal on the wall of the
Temple of Theseus, and writes Credeville the robber on the
Pyramids.

Paris is always showing its teeth; when it is not scolding, it
is laughing.

Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs is the ideas of the
universe. A heap of mud and stone, if you will, but above all,
a moral being. It is more than great, it is immense. Why?
Because it dares.

To dare; progress is at this price.

All sublime conquests are, more or less, the rewards of daring.
That the revolution should come, it was not enough that
Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it,
that Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should
calculate it, that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should
premeditate it; Danton must dare it.

That cry, " Audace" is a Fiat Lux I The onward march of

Marius 569

the human race requires that the heights around it should be
ablaze with noble and enduring lessons of courage. Deeds of
daring dazzle history, and form one of the guiding lights of
man. The dawn dares when it rises. To strive, to brave all
risks, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to yourself, to
grapple hand to hand with destiny, to surprise defeat by the
little terror it inspires, at one time to confront unrighteous
power, at another to defy intoxicated triumph, to hold fast, to
hold hard— such is the example which the nations need, and
the light that electrifies them. The same puissant lightning
darts from the torch of Prometheus and the clay-pipe of
Cambronne.

XII

THE FUTURE LATENT IN THE PEOPLE

As to the people of Paris, even when grown to manhood, it is,
always, the gamin ; to depict the child is to depict the city,
and therefore it is that we have studied this eagle in this open-
hearted sparrow.

It is in the suburbs especially, we insist, that the Parisian
race is found ; there is the pure blood ; there is the true physiog-
nomy; there this people works and suffers, and suffering and
toil are the two forms of men. There are vast numbers of
unknown beings teeming with the strangest types of humanity,
from the stevedore of the Rape"e to the horsekiller of Mont-
faucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero; mob, adds the indignant
Burke; the herd, the multitude, the populace. Those words
are quickly said. But if it be so, what matters it? What is
it to me that they go barefoot? They cannot read. So much
the worse. Will you abandon them for that? Would you
make their misfortune their curse ? Cannot the light penetrate
these masses? Let us return to that cry: Light! and let us
persist in it! Light! light! Who knows but that these
opacities will become transparent? are not revolutions trans-
figurations? Proceed, philosophers, teach, enlighten, enkindle,
think aloud, speak aloud, run joyously towards the broad
daylight, fraternise in the public squares, announce the glad
tidings, scatter plenteously your alphabets, proclaim human
rights, sing your Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms broadcast, tear
off green branches from the oak-trees. Make thought a whirl-
wind. This multitude can be sublimated. Let us learn to

57° Les Miserables

avail ourselves of this vast combustion of principles and virtues,
which sparkles, crackles, and thrills at certain periods. These
bare feet, these naked arms, these rags, these shades of ignor-
ance, these depths of abjectness, these abysses of gloom may
be employed in the conquest of the ideal. Look through the
medium of the people, and you shall discern the truth. This
lowly sand which you trample beneath your feet, if you cast it
into the furnace, and let it melt and seethe, shall become
resplendent crystal, and by means of such as it a Galileo and a
Newton shall discover stars.

XIII

LITTLE GAVROCHR

ABOUT eight or nine years after the events narrated in the
second part of this story, there was seen, on the Boulevard du
Temple, and in the neighbourhood of the Chateau d'Eau, a
little boy of eleven or twelve years of age, who would have
realised with considerable accuracy the ideal of the gamin pre-
viously sketched, if, with the laughter of his youth upon his
lips, his heart had not been absolutely dark and empty. This
child was well muffled up in a man's pair of pantaloons, but he
had not got them from his father, and in a woman's chemise,
which was not an inheritance from his mother. Strangers had
clothed him in these rags out of charity. Still, he had a father
and a mother. But his father never thought of him, and his
mother did not love him. He was one of those children so
deserving of pity from all, who have fathers and mothers, and
yet are orphans.

This little boy never felt so happy as when in the street.
The pavement was not so hard to him as the heart of his mother.

His parents had thrown him out into life with a kick.

He had quite ingenuously spread his wings, and taken flight.

He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, roguish
urchin, with an air at once vivacious and sickly. He went,
came, sang, played pitch and toss, scraped the gutters, stole a
little, but he did it gaily, like the cats and the sparrows, laughed
when people called him an errand-boy, and got angry when
they called him a ragamuffin. He had no shelter, no food, no
fire, no love, but he was light-hearted because he was free.

When these poor creatures are men, the millstone of our
social system almost always comes in contact with them, and

Marius 571

grinds them, but while they are children they escape because
they are little. The smallest hole saves them.

However, deserted as this lad was, it happened sometimes,
every two or three months, that he would say to himself:
" Come, I'll go and see my mother ! " Then he would leave the
Boulevard, the Cirque, the Porte Saint Martin, go down along
the quays, cross the bridges, reach the suburbs, walk as far as
the Salpetriere, and arrive— where ? Precisely at that double
number, 50-52, which is known to the reader, the Gorbeau
building.

At the period referred to, the tenement No. 50-52, usually
empty, and permanently decorated with the placard " Rooms
to let," was, for a wonder, tenanted by several persons who,_ in
all other respects, as is always the case at Paris, had no relation
to or connection with each other. They all belonged to that
indigent class which begins with the small bourgeois in embar-
rassed circumstances, and descends, from grade to grade of
wretchedness, through the lower strata of society, until it
reaches those two beings in whom all the material things of
civilisation terminate, the scavenger and the rag-picker.

The " landlady " of the time of Jean Valjean was dead, and
had been replaced by another exactly like her. I do not
remember what philosopher it was who said: " There is never
any lack of old women."

The new old woman was called Madame Burgon, and her life
had been remarkable for nothing except a dynasty of three
paroquets, which had in succession wielded the sceptre of her
affections.

Among those who lived in the building, the wretchedest of
all were a family of four persons, father, mother, and two
daughters nearly grown, all four lodging in the same garret
room, one of those cells of which we have already spoken.

This family at first sight presented nothing very peculiar but
its extreme destitution; the father, in renting the room, had
given his name as Jondrette. Some time after his moving in,
which had singularly resembled, to borrow the memorable
expression of the landlady, the entrance of nothing at all, this
Jondrette said to the old woman, who, like her predecessor,
was, at the same time, portress and swept the stairs: " Mother
So and So, if anybody should come^and ask for a Pole or an
Italian or, perhaps, a Spaniard, that is for me."

Now, this family was the family of our sprightly little bare-
footed urchin. When he came there, he found distress and,

572 Les Miserables

what is sadder still, no smile; a cold hearthstone and cold
hearts. When he came in, they would ask: " Where have you
come from? " He would answer: " From the street." When
he was going away they would ask him: " Where are you going
to?" He would answer: "Into the street." His mother
would say to him : " What have you come here for ? "

The child lived, in this absence of affection, like those pale
plants that spring up in cellars. He felt no suffering from this
mode of existence, and bore no ill-will to anybody. He did not
know how a father and mother ought to be.

But yet his mother loved his sisters.

We had forgotten to say that on the Boulevard du Temple
this boy went by the name of little Gavroche. Why was his
name Gavroche? Probably because his father's name was
Jondrette.

To break all links seems to be the instinct of some wretched
families.

The room occupied by the Jondrettes in the Gorbeau tene-
ment was the last at the end of the hall. The adjoining cell
was tenanted by a very poor young man who was called Monsieur
Marius.

Let us see who and what Monsieur Marius was.

BOOK SECOND— THE GRAND BOURGEOIS

NINETY YEARS OLD AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH

IN the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie, and Rue de Saint-
onge, there still remain a few old inhabitants who preserve a
memory of a fine old man named M. Gillenormand, and who
like to talk about him. This man was old when they were
young. This figure, to those who look sadly upon that vague
swarm of shadows which they call the past, has not yet entirely
disappeared from the labyrinth of streets in the neighbourhood
of the Temple, to which, under Louis XIV., were given the
names of all the provinces of France, precisely, as in our days
the names of all the capitals of Europe have been given to the
streets in the new Quartier Tivoli; an advance, be it said by
the way, in which progress is visible.

M. Gillenormand, who was as much alive as any man can be,
in 1831, was one of those men who have become curiosities,
simply because they have lived a long time; and who are
strange, because formerly they were like everybody else, and
now they are no longer like anybody else. He was a peculiar
old man, and very truly a man of another age— the genuine
bourgeois of the eighteenth century, a very perfect specimen, a
little haughty, wearing his good old bourgeoisie as marquises
wear their marquisates. He had passed his ninetieth year,
walked erect, spoke in a loud voice, saw clearly, drank hard,
ate, slept, and snored. He had every one of his thirty-two
teeth. He wore glasses only when reading. He was of an
amorous humour, but said that for ten years past he had
decidedly and entirely renounced women. He was no longer
pleasing, he said; he did not add: " I am too old," but, " I am
too poor." He would say: " If I were not ruined, he! he!
His remaining income in fact was only about fifteen thousand
livres. His dream was of receiving a windfall, and having an
income of a hundred thousand francs, in order to keep mistresses.
He did not belong, as we see, to that sickly variety of octogen-
arians who, like M. de Voltaire, are dying all their life; it. was

573

574 Les Miserables

not a milk and water longevity; this jovial old man was always
in good health. He was superficial, hasty, easily angered. He
got into a rage on all occasions, most frequently when most
unseasonable. When anybody contradicted him he raised his
cane; he beat his servants as in the time of Louis XIV. He
had an unmarried daughter over fifty years old, whom he
belaboured severely v/hen he was angry, and whom he would
gladly have horsewhipped. She seemed to him about eight
years old. He curled his domestics vigorously and would say:
Ah! slut! One of his oaths was: By the big slippers of big
slipperdoin I In some respects he was of a singular tranquillity :
he was shaved every day by a barber who had been crazy and
who hated him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on account of
his wife, a pretty coquettish woman. M. Gillenormand admired
his own discernment in everything, and pronounced himself
very sagacious ; this is one of his sayings : " I have indeed some
penetration; I can tell when a flea bites me, from what woman
it comes." The terms which he oftenest used were: sensible
men, and nature. He did not give to this last word the broad
acceptation which our epoch has assigned to it. But he twisted
it into his own use in his little chimney-corner satires: " Nature,"
he would say, " in order that civilisation may have a little of
everything, gives it even some specimens of amusing barbarism.
Europe has samples of Asia and Africa, in miniature. The cat
is a drawing-room tiger, the lizard is a pocket crocodile. The
danseuses of the opera are rosy savagesses. They do not eat
men, they feed upon them. Or rather, the little magicians
change them into oysters, and swallow them. The Caribs leave
nothing but the bones, they leave nothing but the shells. Such
are our customs. We do not devour, we gnaw; we do not
exterminate, we clutch."

LIKE MASTER, LIKE DWELLING

HE lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles de Calvaire, No. 6. The
house was his own. This house has been torn down, and
rebuilt since, and its number has probably been changed in the
revolutions of numbering to which the streets of Paris are sub-
ject. He occupied an ancient and ample apartment on the
first story, between the street and the gardens, covered to the
ceiling with fine Gobelin and Beauvais tapestry representing

Marius 575

pastoral scenes; the subjects of the ceiling and the panels were
repeated in miniature upon the arm-chairs. He surrounded his
bed with a large screen with nine leaves varnished with Coro-
mandel lac. Long, full curtains hung at the windows, and made
great, magnificent broken folds. The garden, which was imme-
diately beneath his windows, was connected with the angle
between them by means of a staircase of twelve or fifteen steps,
which the old man ascended and descended very blithely. In
addition to a library adjoining his room, he had a boudoir whicl
he thought very much of, a gay retreat, hung with magnificent
straw-colour tapestry, covered with fleur de lys and with figures
from the galleries of Louis XIV., and ordered by M. de Vivonne
from his convicts for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had
inherited this from a severe maternal great-aunt, who died at
the age of a hundred. He had had two wives. His manners
held a medium between the courtier which he had never been,
and the counsellor which he might have been. He was gay,
and kind when he wished to be. In his youth, he had been one
of those men who are always deceived by their wives and never
by their mistresses, because they are at the same time the most
disagreeable husbands and the most charming lovers in the
world. He was a connoisseur in painting. He had in his room
a wonderful portrait of nobody knows who, painted by Jor-
daens done in great dabs with the brush, with millions of details,
in a confused manner and as if by chance. M. Gillenormand s
dress was not in the fashion of Louis XV., nor even in the fashion
of Louis XVI.; he wore the costume of the incroyables of the
Directory. He had thought himself quite young until then,
and had kept up with the fashions. His coat was of light cloth,
with broad facings, a long swallow tail, and large steel buttons.
Add to this short breeches and shoe buckles. He always
carried his hands in his pockets. He said authoritatively:
The French Revolution is a mess of scamps.

Ill

LUKE ESPRIT

WHEN sixteen years old, one evening, at the opera, he had had
the honour of being stared at, at the same time, by two beautie
then mature and celebrated and besung by Voltaire, La Camargo
and La Salle. Caught between two fires, he had made a heroic
retreat towards a little danseuse, a girl named Nahenry, who-

576

Les Miserablcs

was sixteen years old, like him obscure as a cat, and with whom
he fell in love. He was full of reminiscences. He would
exclaim : " How pretty she was, that Guimard Guimardin
Guimardinette, the last time I saw her at Longchamps, frizzled
in lofty sentiments, with her curious trinkets in turquoise, her
dress the colour of a new-born child, and her muff in agitation ! "
He had worn in his youth a vest of London short, of which he
talked frequently and fluently. " I was dressed like a Turk of
the Levantine Levant," said he. Madame de Boufflers, having
accidentally seen him when he was twenty years old, described
him as a " charming fool." He ridiculed all the names which
he saw in politics or in power, finding them low and vulgar.
He read the journals, the newspapers, the gazettes, as he said,
stifling with bursts of laughter. "Oh!" said he, "what are
these people ! Corbiere ! Humann ! Casimir Perier ! those are
ministers for you. I imagine I see this in a journal: M. Gille-
normand, Minister; that would be a joke. Well! they are so
stupid that it would go ! " He called everything freely by its
name, proper or improper, and was never restrained by the
presence of women. He would say coarse, obscene, and
indecent things with an inexpressible tranquillity and coolness
which was elegant. It was the off-hand way of his time. It is
worthy of remark, that the age of periphrases in verse was the
age of crudities in prose. His godfather had predicted that he
would be a man of genius., and gave him these two significant
names: Luke Esprit.

AN INSPIRING CENTENARIAN

HE had taken several prizes in his youth at the college at
Moulins, where he was born, and had been crowned by the
hands of the Duke de Nivernais, whom he called the Duke de
Nevers. Neither the Convention, nor the death of Louis XVI.,
nor Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, had been able
to efface the memory of this coronation. The Duke de Nevers
was to him the great figure of the century. " What a noble,
great lord," said he, " and what a fine air he had with his blue
ribbon ! " In Monsieur Gillenormand's eyes, Catharine II. had
atoned for the crime of the partition of Poland by buying the
secret of the elixir of gold from Bestuchef, for three thousand
roubles. Over this he grew animated. " The elixir of gold,"

Marius 577

exclaimed he, " Bestuchef's yellow dye, General Lamotte's
drops, these were in the eighteenth century, at a louis for a half
ounce flask, the great remedy for the catastrophes of love, the
panacea against Venus. Louis XV. sent two hundred flasks tc
the Pope." He would have been greatly exasperated and
thrown off his balance if anybody had told him that the elixir
of gold was nothing but the perchloride of iron. Monsieur
Gillenormand worshipped the Bourbons and held 1789 in horror;
he was constantly relating how he saved himself during the
Reign of Terror, and how, if he had not had a good deal of
gaiety and a good deal of wit, his head would have been cut off.
If any young man ventured to eulogise the republic in his
presence, he turned black in the face, and was angry enough to
faint. Sometimes he would allude to his ninety years of age,
and say, / really hope that 1 shall not see ninety-three twice. At
other times he intimated to his people that he intended to live
a hundred years.

BASQUE AND NICOLETTE

HE had his theories. Here is one of them : " When a man
passionately loves women, and has a wife of his own for whom
he cares but little, ugly, cross, legitimate, fond of asserting her
rights, roosting on the code and jealous on occasion, he has but
one way to get out of it and keep the peace, that is to let his
wife have the purse-strings. This abdication makes him free.
The wife keeps herself busy then, devotes herself to handling
specie, verdigrises her fingers, takes charge of the breeding of
the tenants, the bringing up of the farmers, convokes lawyers,
presides over notaries, harangues justices, visits pettifoggers,
follows up lawsuits, writes out leases, dictates contracts, feels
herself sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and com-
promises, binds and cancels, cedes, concedes, and retrocedes,
arranges, deranges, economises, wastes; she does foolish things,
a magisterial and personal pleasure, and this consoles her. While
her husband disdains her, she has the satisfaction of ruining
her husband." This theory, Monsieur Gillenormand had
applied to himself, and it had become his history. His wife,
the second one, had administered his fortune in such wise that
there remained to Monsieur Gillenormand, when one fine day he
found himself a widower, just enough to obtain, by turning
j x

578

Les Miserables

almost everything into an annuity, an income of fifteen thousand
francs, three-quarters of which would expire with himself. He
had no hesitation, little troubled with the care of leaving an
inheritance. Moreover, he had seen that patrimonies met with
adventures, and, for example, became national property; he
had been present at the avatars of the consolidated thirds, and
he had little faith in the ledger. " Rue Quincampoix for all
that/" said he. His house in Rue des Filles du Calvaire, we
have said, belonged to him. He had two domestics, " a male
and a female." When a domestic entered his service, Monsieur
Gillenormand rebaptised him. He gave to the men the name
of their province : Nimois, Comtois, Poitevin, Picard. His last
valet was a big, pursy, wheezy man of fifty-five, incapable of
running twenty steps, but as he was born at Bayonne, Monsieur
Gillenormand called him Basque. As for female servants, they
were all called Nicolette in his house (even Magnon, who will
reappear as we proceed). One day a proud cook, with a blue
sash, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. " How
much do you want a month? " asked Monsieur Gillenormand.
"Thirty francs." "What is your name?" "Olympic."
" You shall have fifty francs, and your name shall be Nicolette,"

IN WHICH WE SEE LA MAGNON AND HER TWO LITTLE
ONES

AT Monsieur Gillenormand 's grief was translated into anger; he
was furious at being in despair. He had every prejudice, and
took every licence. One of the things of which he made up his
external relief and his internal satisfaction was, we have just
indicated, that he was still a youthful gallant, and that he
passed for such energetically. He called this having " royal
renown." His royal renown sometimes attracted singular
presents. One day there was brought to his house in a basket,
something like an oyster basket, a big boy, new-born, crying
like the deuce, and duly wrapped in swaddling clothes, which a
servant girl turned away six months before attributed to him.
Monsieur Gillenormand was at that time fully eighty-four years
old. Indignation and clamour on the part of the bystanders.
And who did this bold wench think would believe this? What
effrontery I What an abominable calumny! Monsieur Gille-
normand, however, manifested no anger. He looked upon the

Marius 579

bundle with the amiable smile of a man who is flattered by a
calumny, and said aside: " Well, what? what is it? what is
the matter there? what have we here? you are in a pretty
state of amazement, and indeed seem like any ignorant people.
The Duke d'Angouleme, natural son of his majesty Charles IX.,
married at eighty-five a little hussy of fifteen; Monsieur Virginal,
Marquis d'Alhuye, brother of Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop
of Bordeaux, at eighty-three, had, by a chambermaid of the
wife of President Jacquin, a son, a true love son, who was a
Knight of Malta, and knighted Councillor of State; one of the
great men of this century, Abbe Tabarand, was the son of a
man eighty-seven years old. These things are anything but
uncommon. And then the Bible 1 Upon that, I declare that
this little gentleman is not mine. But take care of him. It is
not his fault." This process was too easy. The creature, she
whose name was Magnon, made him a second present the year
after. It was a boy again. This time Monsieur Gillenormand
capitulated. He sent the two brats back to the mother,
engaging to pay eighty francs a month for their support, upon
condition that the said mother should not begin again. He
added, " I wish the mother to treat them well. I will come to
see them from time to time." Which he did. He had had a
brother, a priest, who had been for thirty-three years rector of
the Academy of Poitiers, and who died at seventy-nine. " I
lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom hardly a
memory is left, was a quiet miser, who, being a priest, felt
obliged to give alms to the poor whom he met, but never gave
them anything more than coppers or worn-out sous, finding
thus the means of going to Hell by the road to Paradise. As
to Monsieur Gillenormand, the elder, he made no trade of alms-
giving, but gave willingly and nobly. He was benevolent,
abrupt, charitable, and had he been rich, his inclination would
have been to be magnificent. He wished that all that con-
cerned him should be done in a large way, even rascalities.
One day, having been swindled in an inheritance by a business
man, in a gross and palpable manner, he uttered this solemn
exclamation: " Fie! this is not decent! I am really ashamed
of these petty cheats. Everything is degenerate in this century,
even the rascals. 'Sdeath ! this is not the way to rob a man
like me. I am robbed as if in a wood, but meanly robbed.
Silvce sint consuls digncs I " He had had, we have said, two
wives; by the first a daughter, who had remained unmarried,
and by the second another daughter, who died when about

580 Les Miserables

thirty years old, and who had married for love, or luck, or
otherwise, a soldier of fortune, who had served in the armies of
the republic and the empire, had won the cross at Austerlitz,
and been made colonel at Waterloo. " This is the disgrace of
my family," said the old bourgeois. He took a great deal of
snuff, and had a peculiar skill in ruffling his lace frill with the
back of his hand. He had very little belief in God.

VII

RULE:— NEVER RECEIVE ANYBODY EXCEPT IN THE
EVENING

SUCH was M. Luke Esprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his
hair, which was rather grey than white, and always combed in
dog's-ears. To sum up, and with all this, a venerable man.

He was of the eighteenth century, frivolous and great.

In 1814, and in the early years of the Restoration, Monsieur
Gillenormand, who was still young — he was only seventy-four
— had lived in the Faubourg Saint Germain, Rue Servandoni,
near Saint Sulpice. He had retired to the Marais only upon
retiring from society, after his eighty years were fully accom-
plished.

And in retiring from society, he had walled himself up in his
habits; the principal one, in which he was invariable, was to
keep his door absolutely closed by day, and never to receive
anybody whatever, on any business whatever, except in the
evening. He dined at five o'clock, then his door was open.
This was the custom of his century, and he would not swerve
from it. " The day is vulgar," said he, " and only deserves
closed shutters. People who are anybody light up their wit
when the zenith lights up its stars." And he barricaded
himself against everybody, were it even the king. The old
elegance of his time.

VIII

TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR

As to the two daughters of Monsieur Gillenormand, we have
just spoken of them. They were born ten years apart. In
their youth they resembled each other very little; and in
character as well as in countenance, were as far from being

Marius 581

sisters as possible. The younger was a cheerful soul, attracted
towards everything that is bright, busy with flowers, poetry,
and music, carried away into the glories of space, enthusiastic,
ethereal, affianced from childhood in the ideal to a dim heroic
figure. The elder had also her chimera; in the azure depth she
saw a contractor, some good, coarse commissary, very rich, a
husband splendidly stupid, a million-made man, or even a
prefect; receptions at the prefecture, an usher of the ante-
chamber, with the chain on his neck, official balls, harangues
at the mayor's, to be " Madame la prefete" this whirled in her
imagination. The two sisters wandered thus, each in her own
fancy, when they were young girls. Both had wings, one like
an angel, the other like a goose.

No ambition is fully realised, here below at least. No
paradise becomes terrestrial at the period in which we live.
The younger had married the man of her dreams, but she was
dead. The elder was not married.

At the moment she makes her entry into the story which we
are relating, she was an old piece of virtue, an incombustible
prude, one of the sharpest noses and one of the most obtuse
minds which could be discovered. A characteristic incident.
Outside of the immediate family nobody had ever known her
first name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder.

In cant, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder could have
given odds to an English miss. She was immodestly modest.
She had one frightful reminiscence in her life: one day a man
had seen her garter.

Age had only increased this pitiless modesty. Her dress
front was never thick enough, and never rose high enough.
She multiplied hooks and pins where nobody thought of looking.
The peculiarity of prudery is to multiply sentinels, in proportion
as the fortress is less threatened.

However, explain who can these ancient mysteries of inno-
cence, she allowed herself to be kissed without displeasure, by
an officer of lancers who was her grand-nephew and whose name
was Th6odule.

Spite of this favoured lancer, the title Prude, under which we
have classed her, fitted her absolutely. Mademoiselle Gille-
normand was a kind of twilight soul. Prudery is half a virtue
and half a vice.

To prudery she added bigotry, a suitable lining. She was of
the fraternity of the Virgin, wore a white veil on certain feast-
days, muttered special prayers, revered " the holy blood,"

582

Les Miserables

venerated " the sacred heart," remained for hours in content
plation before an old-fashioned Jesuit altar in a chapel closed
to the vulgar faithful, and let her soul fly away among the
little marble clouds and along the grand rays of gilded wood.

She had a chapel friend, an old maid like herself, called
Mademoiselle Vaubois, who was perfectly stupid, and in com-
parison with whom Mademoiselle Gillenormand had the happi-
ness of being an eagle. Beyond her Agnus Deis and her Ave
Marias, Mademoiselle Vaubois had no light except upon the
different modes of making sweetmeats. Mademoiselle Vaubois,
perfect in her kind, was the ermine of stupidity without a
single stain of intelligence.

We must say that in growing old, Mademoiselle Gillenormand
had rather gained than lost. This is the case with passive
natures. She had never been peevish, which is a relative good-
ness; and then, years wear off angles, and the softening of time
had come upon her. She was sad with an obscure sadness of
which she had not the secret herself. There was in her whole
person the stupor of a life ended but never commenced.

She kept her father's house. Monsieur Gillenormand had his
daughter with him as we have seen Monseigneur Bienvenu have
his sister with him. These households of an old man and an
old maid are not rare, and always have the touching aspect of
two feeblenesses leaning upon each other.

There was besides in the house, between this old maid and
this old man, a child, a little boy, always trembling and mute
before M. Gillenormand. M. Gillenormand never spoke to this
child but with stern voice, and sometimes with uplifted cane:
" Here I Monsieur — rascal, black-guard, come here I Answer me,
rogue I Let me see you, scapegrace I " etc. etc. He idolised him.

It was his grandson. We shall see this child again.

AN OLD SALON

WHEN M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he fre-
quented several very fine and very noble salons. Although a
bourgeois, M. Gillenormand was welcome. As he was twice
witty, first with his own wit, then with the wit which was
attributed to him, he was even sought after and lionised. He
went nowhere save on condition of ruling there. There are
men who at any price desire influence and to attract the atten-
tion of others; where they cannot be oracles, they make them-
selves laughing-stocks. Monsieur Gillenormand was not of this
nature; his dominance in the royalist salons which he frequented
cost him none of his self-respect. He was an oracle everywhere.
It was his fortune to have as an antagonist, Monsieur de Bonald,
and even Monsieur Bengy-Puy-Vallee.

About 1817, he always spent two afternoons a week at a
house in his neighbourhood, in the Rue Ferou, that of the

Baroness of T , a worthy and venerable lady, whose husband

had been, under Louis XVI., French Ambassador at Berlin.
The Baron of T., who, during his life, had devoted himself
passionately to ecstasies and magnetic visions, died in the
emigration, ruined, leaving no fortune but ten manuscript
volumes bound in red morocco with gilt edges, of very curious
memoirs upon Mesmer and his trough. Madame de T. had not
published the memoirs from motives of dignity, and supported
herself on a small income, which had survived the flood nobody
knows how. Madame de T. lived far from the court, — a very
mixed society, said she, — in a noble, proud, and poor isolation.
A few friends gathered about her widow's hearth twice a week,
and this constituted a pure royalist salon. They took tea, and
uttered, as the wind set towards elegy or dithyrambic, groans
or cries of horror over the century, over the charter, over the
Buonapartists, over the prostitution of the blue ribbon to bour-

583

584 Les Miserables

geois, over the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII. ; and they amused
themselves in whispers with hopes which rested upon Monsieur,
since Charles X.

They hailed the vulgar songs in which Napoleon was called
Nicolas with transports of joy. Duchesses, the most delicate
and the most charming women in the world, went into ecstasies
over couplets like this addressed " to the federals: "

Renforcez dans vos culottes
Le bout d'chems* qui vous pend.
Qu'on n' dis pas qu' les patriotes
Ont arbore 1'drapeau blanc!

They amused themselves with puns which they thought
terrible, with innocent plays upon words which they supposed
to be venomous, with quatrains and even distiches; thus upon
the Dessolles ministry, a moderate cabinet of which MM.
Decazes and Deserre were members :

Pour raffermir le trone £branld sur sa base,
II faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case.

Or sometimes they drew up the list of the Chamber of Peers,
" Chamber abominably jacobin," and in this list they arranged
the names, so as to make, for example, phrases like this : Damas.
Sdbran. Gouvion Saint Cyr. All this gaily.

In this little world they parodied the revolution. They had
some inclinations or other which sharpened the same anger in
the inverse sense. They sang their little fa ira :

Ah! ca ira! ca ira! ca ira!
Les buonapartist* a la lanterne!

Songs are like the guillotine; they cut indifferently, to-day
this head, to-morrow that. It is only a variation.

In the Fualdes affair, which belongs to this time, 1816, they
took sides with Bastide and Jausion, because Fualdes was a
" Buonapartist." They called the liberals, the brothers and
friends ; this was the highest degree of insult.

Like certain menageries, the Baroness de T 's salon had

two lions. One was M. Gillenormand, the other was Count de
Lamothe Valois, of whom it was whispered, with a sort of
consideration: "Do you know? He is the Lamothe of the neck-
lace affair." Partisans have such singular amnesties as these.

We will add also : " Among the bourgeois, positions of honour
are lowered by too easy intercourse ; you must take care whom
you receive; just as there is a loss of caloric in the neighbour-
hood of those who are cold, there is a diminution of considera-

Marius 585

tion in the approach of people who are despised. The old
highest society held itself above this law as it did above all
others. Marigny, La Pompadour's brother, is a visitor of the
Prince de Soubise. Although? no, because. Du Barry, god-
father of La Vaubernier, is very welcome at the Marshal de
Richelieu's. This society is Olympus. Mercury and the Prince
de Guemenee are at home there. A thief is admitted, provided
he be a lord.

The Count de Lamothe, who, in 1815, was a man of seventy-
five, was remarkable for nothing save his silent and sententious
air, his cold, angular face, his perfectly polished manners, his
coat buttoned up to his cravat, and his long legs, always crossed
in long, loose pantaloons, of the colour of burnt sienna. His
face was of the colour of his pantaloons.

This M. de Lamothe was " esteemed " in this salon, on
account of his " celebrity," and, strange to say, but true, on
account of the name of Valois.

As to M. Gillenormand, his consideration was absolutely for
himself alone. He made authority. He had, sprightly as he
was, and without detriment to his gaiety, a certain fashion of
being, which was imposing, worthy, honourable, and genteelly
lofty; and his great age added to it. A man is not a century
for nothing. Years place at last a venerable crown upon a head.

He gave, moreover, some of those repartees which certainly
have in them the genuine sparkle. Thus when the King of
Prussia, after having restored Louis XVIII., came to make him
a visit under the name of Count de Ruppin, he was received by
the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat like a Marquis of
Brandenburg, and with the most delicate impertinence. Mon-
sieur Gillenormand approved this. " All kings wlw are not the
King of France" said he, " are kings of a province." The fol-
lowing question and answer were uttered one day in his presence :
" What is the sentence of the editor of the Courier Francois 1 ''
" To be hung up for awhile." " Up is superfluous," observed
Monsieur Gillenormand. Sayings of this kind make position
for a man.

At an anniversary Te Deum for the return of the Bourbons,
seeing Monsieur de Talleyrand pass, he said: There goes His
Excellency the Bad.

M. Gillenormand was usually accompanied by his daughter,
this long mademoiselle, then past forty, and seeming fifty, and
by a beautiful little boy of seven, white, rosy, fresh-looking,
with happy and trustful eyes, who never appeared in this salon

586

Les Miserables

without hearing a buzz about him: " How pretty he is I What
a pity I poor child I " This child was the boy to whom we have
but just alluded. They called him " poor child/' because his
father was " a brigand of the Loire."

This brigand of the Loire was M. Gillenormand's son-in-law,
already mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called the
disgrace of his family.

ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT TIME

WHOEVER, at that day, had passed through the little city of
Vernon, and walked over that beautiful monumental bridge
which will be very soon replaced, let us hope, by some horrid
wire bridge, would have noticed, as his glance fell from the top
of the parapet, a man of about fifty, with a leather casque on
his head, dressed in pantaloons and waistcoat of coarse grey
cloth, to which something yellow was stitched which had been
a red ribbon, shod in wooden shoes, browned by the sun, his
face almost black and his hair almost white, a large scar upon
his forehead extending down his cheek, bent, bowed down,
older than his years, walking nearly every day with a spade and
a pruning knife in his hand, in one of those walled compart-
ments, in the vicinity of the bridge, which, like a chain of
terraces border the left bank of the Seine, — charming inclosures
full of flowers of which one would say, if they were much larger,
they are gardens, and if they were a little smaller, they are
bouquets. All these inclosures are bounded by the river on
one side and by a house on the other. The man in the waist-
coat and wooden shoes of whom we have just spoken lived,
about the year 1817, in the smallest of these inclosures and the
humblest of these houses. He lived there solitary and alone,
in silence and in poverty, with a woman who was neither young
nor old, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither peasant nor bour-
geois, who waited upon him. The square of earth which he
called his garden was celebrated in the town for the beauty
of the flowers which he cultivated in it. Flowers were his
occupation.

By dint of labour, perseverance, attention, and pails of water,
he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and had invented
certain tulips and dahlias which seemed to have been forgotten
by Nature. He was ingenious; he anticipated Soulange Bodin

Marius 587

in the formation of little clumps of heather earth for the culture
of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. By break
of day, in summer, he was in his walks, digging, pruning, weed-
ing, watering, walking in the midst of his flowers with an air
of kindness, sadness, and gentleness, sometimes dreamy and
motionless for whole hours, listening to the song of a bird in a
tree, the prattling of a child in a house, or oftener with his eyes
fixed on some drop of dew at the end of a spear of grass, of
which the sun was making a carbuncle. His table was very
frugal, and he drank more milk than wine. An urchin would
make him yield, his servant scolded him. He was timid, so
much so as to seem unsociable, he rarely went out, and saw
nobody but the poor who rapped at his window, and his cure,
Abbe Mabeuf, a good old man. Still, if any of the inhabitants
of the city or strangers, whoever they might be, curious to see
his tulips and roses, knocked at his little house, he opened his
door with a smile. This was the brigand of the Loire.

Whoever, at the same time, had read the military memoirs,
the biographies, the Moniteur, and the bulletins of the Grand
Army, would have been struck by a name which appears rather
often, the name of George Pontmercy. When quite young,
this George Pontmercy was a soldier in the regiment of Saint-
onge. The revolution broke out. The regiment of Saintonge
was in the Army of the Rhine. For the old regiments of the
monarchy kept their province names even after the fall of the
monarchy, and were not brigaded until 1794. Pontmercy
fought at Spires, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey,
at Mayence where he was one of the two hundred who formed
Bouchard's rear-guard. He with eleven others held their
ground against the Prince of Hesse's corps behind the old
rampart of Andernach, and only fell back upon the bulk of the
army when the hostile cannon had effected a breach from the
top of the parapet to the slope of the glacis. He was under
Kleber at Marchiennes, and at the battle of Mont Palissel,
where he had his arm broken by a musket-ball. Then he passed
to the Italian frontier, and he was one of the thirty grenadiers
who defended the Col di Tende with Joubert. Joubert was
made Adjutant -General, and Pontmercy Second -Lieutenant.
Pontmercy was by the side of Berthier in the midst of the storm
of balls on that day of Lodi of which Bonaparte said : Bcrthter
was cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier. He saw his old general,
Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted sword,
he was crying: Forward! Being embarked with his company

588

Les Miserables

through the necessities of the campaign, in a pinnace, which
was on the way from Genoa to some little port, on the coast, b
fell into a wasp's-nest of seven or eight English vessels.
Genoese captain wanted to throw the guns into the sea, hide
soldiers in the hold, and slip through in the dark like a merchant
man Pontmercy had the colours seized to the halyards of the
ensign-staff, and passed proudly under the guns of the ]
frigates. Fifty miles further on, his boldness increasing, h
attacked with his pinnace and captured a large English transpor
carrying troops to Sicily, so loaded with men and horses that 1
vessel was full to the hatches. In 1805, he was m that dmsi
of Malher which captured Gunzburg from the Archduke ]
nand. At Weltingen he received in his arms under a she
balls Colonel Maupetit, who was mortally wounded at t
of the 9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerht
that wonderful march in echelon under the enemy's fire. When
the cavalry of the Russian Imperial Guard crushed a battalion
of the 4th of the Line, Pontmercy was one of those who n
vended the repulse, and overthrew the Guard. The empen
gave him the cross. Pontmercy successively saw Wurmser
made prisoner in Mantua, Melas in Alexandria, and Mack m Ulm.
He was in the eighth corps, of the Grand Army, which MortK
commanded, and which took Hamburg. Then he passi
the 55th of the Line, which was the old Flanders regiment. At
Eylau he was in the churchyard where the heroic captain Louis
Hu^o, uncle of the author of this book, sustained alone w
company of eighty-three men, for two hours, the whole eft
of the enemy's army. Pontmercy was one of the three i
came out of that churchyard alive. He was at ]
Then he saw Moscow, then the Beresina, then Lutzen, Bautzen,
Dresden, Wachau, Leipsic, and the defiles of Glenhausen, then
Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the Marne,
the banks of the Aisne, and the formidable position at Laon.
\t Arnay le Due, a captain, he sabred ten cossacks, and saved,
not his general, but his corporal. He was wounded on that
occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his
left arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Pans,
he exchanged with a comrade, and entered the cavalry,
had what was called under the old regime the double-hand, tl
is to say equal skill in managing, as a soldier, the sabre or the
musket, as an officer, a squadron or a battalion,
perfected by military education, which gives rise to certair
special arms, the dragoons, for instance, who are both cavalry

Marius 589

id infantry. He accompanied Napoleon to the island of Elba.
At Waterloo he led a squadron of cuirassiers in Dubois' brigade.
He it was who took the colours from the Lunenburg battalion.
He carried the colours to the emperor's feet. He was covered
with blood. He had received, in seizing the colours, a sabre
stroke across his face. The emperor, well pleased, cried to him:
You are a Colonel, you are a Baron, you are an Officer of the
Legion of Honour / Pontmercy answered : Sire, I thank you
for my widow. An hour afterwards, he fell in the ravine of
Ohain. Now who was this George Pontmercy? He was that
very brigand of the Loire.

We have already seen something of his history. After
Waterloo, Pontmercy, drawn out, as will be remembered, from
the sunken road of Ohain, succeeded in regaining the army, and
was passed along from ambulance to ambulance to the canton-
ments of the Loire.

The Restoration put him on half-pay, then sent him to a
residence, that is to say under surveillance at Vernon. The
king, Louis XVIII., ignoring all that had been done in the
Hundred Days, recognised neither his position of officer of the
Legion of Honour, nor his rank of colonel, nor his title of baron.
He, on his part, neglected no opportunity to sign himself
Colonel Baron Pontmercy. He had only one old blue coat, and
he never went out without putting on the rosette of an officer
of the Legion of Honour. The -procureur du roi notified him
that he would be prosecuted for " illegally " wearing this
decoration. When this notice was given to him by a friendly
intermediary, Pontmercy answered with a bitter smile : " I
do not know whether it is that I no longer understand French,
or you no longer speak it; but the fact is I do not understand
you." Then he went out every day for a week with his rosette.
Nobody dared to disturb him. Two or three times the minister
of war or the general commanding the department wrote to him
with this address: Monsieur Commandant Pontmercy. He
returned the letters unopened. At the same time, Napoleon
at St. Helena was treating Sir Hudson Lowe's missives addressed
to General Bonaparte in the same way. Pontmercy at last,
excuse the word, came to have in his mouth the same saliva as
his emperor.

So too, there were in Rome a few Carthaginian soldiers, taken
prisoners, who refused to bow to Flaminius, and who had a
little of Hannibal's soul.

One morning, he met the procureur du roi in one of the streets

590 Les Miserables

of Vernon, went up to him and said: " Monsieur procureur du
roi, am I allowed to wear my scar? "

He had nothing but his very scanty half-pay as chief of
squadron. He hired the smallest house he could find in Vernon.
He lived there alone; how we have just seen. Under the
empire, between two wars, he had found time to marry Made-
moiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, who really felt
outraged, consented with a sigh, saying: " The greatest families
are forced to it." In 1815, Madame Pontmercy, an admirable
woman in every respect, noble and rare, and worthy of her
husband, died, leaving a child. This child would have been the
colonel's joy in his solitude; but the grandfather had imperi-
ously demanded his grandson, declaring that, unless he were
given up to him, he would disinherit him. The father yielded
for the sake of the little boy, and not being able to have his
child he set about loving flowers.

He had moreover given up everything, making no movement
nor conspiring with others. He divided his thoughts between
the innocent things he was doing, and the grand things he had
done. He passed his time hoping for a pink or remembering
Austerlitz.

M. Gillenormand had no intercourse with his son-in-law.
The colonel was to him " a bandit," and he was to the colonel
" a blockhead." M. Gillenormand never spoke of the colonel,
unless sometimes to make mocking allusions to " his barony."
It was expressly understood that Pontmercy should never
endeavour to see his son or speak to him, under pain of the
boy being turned away, and disinherited. To the Gillenormands,
Pontmercy was pestiferous. They intended to bring up the
child to their liking. The colonel did wrong perhaps to accept
these conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he
was doing right, and sacrificing himself alone.

The inheritance from the grandfather Gillenormand was a
small affair, but the inheritance from Mile. Gillenormand the
elder was considerable. This aunt, who had remained single,
was very rich from the maternal side, and the son of her sister
was her natural heir. The child, whose name was Marius, knew
that he had a father, but nothing more. Nobody spoke a word
to him about him. However, in the society into which his
grandfather took him, the whisperings, the hints, the winks,
enlightened the little boy's mind at length; he finally compre-
hended something of it, and as he naturally imbibed, by a sort
of infiltration and slow penetration, the ideas and opinions

Marius 591

wiich formed, so to say, the air he breathed, he came little by
little to think of his father only with shame and with a closed
heart.

While he was thus growing up, every two or three months the
colonel would escape, come furtively to Paris like a fugitive
from justice breaking his ban, and go to Saint Sulpice, at the
hour when Aunt Gillenormand took Marius to mass. There,
trembling lest the aunt should turn round, concealed behind a
pillar, motionless, not daring to breathe, he saw his child. The
scarred veteran was afraid of the old maid.

From this, in fact, came his connection with the cure" of
Vernon, Abbe Mabeuf .

This worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint
Sulpice, who had several times noticed this man gazing upon
his child, and the scar on his cheek, and the big tears in his eyes.
This man, who had so really the appearance of a man, and who
wept like a woman, had attracted the warden's attention. This
face remained in his memory. One day, having gone to Vernon
to see his brother, he met Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and
recognised the man of Saint Sulpice. The warden spoke of it
to the cure, and the two, under some pretext, made the colonel
a visit. This visit led to others. The colonel, who at first was
very reserved, finally unbosomed himself, and the cure and the
warden came to know the whole story, and how Pontmercy was
sacrificing his own happiness to the future of his child. The
result was that the cure felt a veneration and tenderness^for him,
and the colonel, on his part, felt an affection for the cure. And,
moreover, when it happens that both are sincere and good,
nothing will mix and amalgamate more easily than an old priest
and an old soldier. In reality, they are the same kind of man.
One has devoted himself to his country upon earth, the other
to his country in heaven; there is no other difference.

Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's Day,
Marius wrote filial letters to his father, which his aunt dictated,
and which, one would have said, were copied from some Com-
plete Letter Writer; this was all that M. Gillenormand allowed;
and the father answered with very tender letters, which the
grandfather thrust into his pocket without reading.

592 Les Miserables

III

REQUIESCANT

THE salon of Madame de T. was all that Marius Pontmercy knew
of the world. It was the only opening by which he could look
out into life. This opening was sombre, and through this
porthole there came more cold than warmth, more night than
day. The child, who was nothing but joy and light on entering
this strange world, in a little while became sad, and, what is
still more unusual at his age, grave. Surrounded by all these
imposing and singular persons, he looked about him with a
serious astonishment. Everything united to increase his amaze-
ment. There were in Madame de T.'s salon some very venerable
noble old ladies, whose names were Mathan, Noah, Levis which
was pronounced Levi, Cambis which was pronounced Cambyse.
These antique faces and these biblical names mingled in the
child's mind with his Old Testament, which he was learning by
heart, and when they were all present, seated in a circle about
a dying fire, dimly lighted by a green-shaded lamp, with their
stern profiles, their grey or white hair, their long dresses of
another age, in which mournful colours only could be dis-
tinguished, at rare intervals dropping a few words which were
at once majestic and austere, the little Marius looked upon them
with startled eyes, thinking that he saw, not women, but
patriarchs and magi, not real beings, but phantoms.

Among these phantoms were scattered several priests, who
frequented this old salon, and a few gentlemen; the Marquis

de Sass , secretary of commands to Madame de Berry, the

Viscount de Val , who published some monorhymed odes

under the pseudonym of Charles Antbine, the Prince de Beauff

, who, quite young, was turning grey, and had a pretty and

witty wife whose dress of scarlet velvet with gold trimmings,
worn very low in the neck, startled this darkness, the Marquis

de C d'E , the man in all France who best understood

" proportioned politeness," the Count d'Am , the goodman

with the benevolent chin, and the Chevalier de Port de Guy, a
frequenter of the library of the Louvre, called the king's
cabinet. M. de Port de Guy, bald and rather old than aged,
related that in 1793, when sixteen years of age, he was sent to the
galleys as " refractory," and chained with an octogenarian, the
Bishop of Mirepoix, refractory also, but as a priest, while he
was so as a soldier. This was at Toulon. Their business was

Marius

593

to go to the scaffold at night, and gather up the heads and
bodies of those that had been guillotined during the day; they
carried these dripping trunks upon their backs, and their red
galey caps were encrusted behind with blood, dry in the morn-
ing, wet at night. These tragic anecdotes abounded in Madame
de f.'s salon; and by dint of cursing Marat, they came to
apphud Trestaillon. A few deputies of the undiscoverable
kind played their whist there, M. Thibord du Chalard, M.
Lemirchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated jester of the Right ,
M. Grnet Dincourt. The Bailli de Ferrette, with his short
breecies and his thin legs, sometimes passed through this salon
on tht way to M. de Talleyrand's. He had been the pleasure
compaiion of the Count d'Artois, and reversing Aristotle
coweriig before Campaspe, he had made La Guimard walk on
all fours, and in this manner shown to the centuries a philo-
sopher ivenged by a bailli.

As fo- the priests, there was Abb6 Halma, the same to whom
M. Larae, his assistant on La Foudre, said : Pshaw I who is there
that ts tot fifty years old? a few greenhorns perhaps ? Abbe
Letourmur, the king's preacher, Abbe Frayssinous, was not
yet eithe count, or bishop, or minister, or peer, and who wore
an old casock short of buttons, and Abbe Keravenant, cur6 de
wSaint Gernain des Pr£s; besides these the Pope's Nuncio, at
that time Konsignor Macchi, Archbishop of Nisibi, afterwards
cardinal, remarkable for his long pensive nose, and another
monsignor wth the following titles: Abbate Palmieri, Domestic
Prelate, one »f the seven participating prothonotaries of the
Holy See, canoi of the Insignia of the Liberian Basilicate, advo-
cate of the Sairts, postulatore di sanli, which relates to the busi-
ness of canonisation and signifies very nearly: master of
requests for the section of paradise. Finally, two cardinals,

M. de la Luzerne *ud Monsieur de Cl T . The Cardinal

de la Luzerne was \ writer, and was to have, some years later,
the honour of signin^articles in the Conservateur side by side with

Chateaubriand; Moisieur de Cl T was Archbishop of

Toul , and often dine to rusticate at Paris with his nephew

the Marquis of T 7who has been Minister of Marine and of

War. The Cardinal d Cl T was a little, lively old

man, showing his red &ockings under his turned-up cassock;
his peculiarities were hae of the Encyclopedia and desperate
play at billiards, and people who, at that time, on summer

evenings passed along the Eje M , where the Hotel de Cl

T was at that time, stored to hear the clicking of the balls

594 Les Miserables

and the sharp voice of the cardinal crying to his fellow con-
clavist, Monseigneur Cottret, Bishop in partibus of Carysta:

Mark, Abbe, I have caromed. The Cardinal de Cl T

had been brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend,
M. de Roquelaure, formerly Bishop of Senlis and one of the
Forty. M. de Roquelaure was noteworthy for his tall stature
and his assiduity at the Academy; through the glass dojr of
the hall near the Library in which the French Academy then
held its sessions, the curious could every Friday gaze upcn the
old Bishop of Senlis, usually standing, freshly powdered with
violet stockings, and turning his back to the door, apparently
to show his little collar to better advantage. All these eccle-
siastics, though for the most part courtiers as well as chunhmen,
added to the importance of the T. salon, the lordly aspect of
which was emphasised by five peers of France, the Maiquis de

Vib , the Marquis de Tal , the Marquis d'Herb — — , the

Viscount Damo , and the Duke de Val . This Duke de

Val , although Prince de Mon , that is to say, i foreign

sovereign prince, had so high an idea of France and th; peerage
that he saw everything through their medium. He it was who
said: The cardinals are the French -peers of Rome ; the Lords are
the French peers of England. Finally, since, in this ceitury, the
revolution must make itself felt everywhere, this feudti salon was,
as we have said, ruled by a bourgeois. Monsieur Cillenormand
reigned there.

There was the essence and the quintessence of Parisian
Legitimatist society. People of renown, even th>ugh royalists,
were held in quarantine. There is always ana-chy in renown.
Chateaubriand, had he entered there, would h?/e had the same
effect as Pere Duchene. Some repentant backsliders, however,
penetrated, by sufferance, into this orthodox world. Count
Beug was received there by favour.

The " noble " salons of the present day tear no resemblance
to those salons. The Faubourg Saint Gemain of the present
smells of heresy. The royalists of this ape are demagogues, we
must say it to their praise.

At Madame de T.'s, the society be;ig superior, there was
exquisite and haughty taste under a all bloom of politeness.
Their manners comported with all sots of involuntary refine-
ments which were the ancient regim- itself, buried, but living.
Some of these peculiarities, in language especially, seemed
grotesque. Superficial observers 'Quid have taken for pro-
vincial what was only ancient. T*ey called a woman madame

Marius 595

la lenerale. Madame la colonelle was not entirely out of use.
The charming Madame de L6on, in memory doubtless of the
Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred this
appellation to her title of Princess. The Marchioness of Crequy
also called herself madame la colonelle.

It was this little lofty world which invented at the Tuileries
the refinement of always saying, when speaking to the king in
person, the king, in the third person, and never, your majesty,
the title your majesty having been " sullied by the usurper."

Facts and men were judged there. They ridiculed the
centuiy, which dispensed with comprehending it. They assisted
one ar.other in astonishment. Each communicated to the rest
the quantity of light he had. Methuselah instructed Epime-
nides. The deaf kept the blind informed. They declared, that
the tirre since Coblentz had not elapsed. Just as Louis XVIII.
was, by the grace of God, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign,
the emijrees were, in reality, in the twenty-fifth year of their
youth.

All was harmonious; nothing was too much alive; speech
was hardy a breath; the journal, suiting the salon, seemed a
papyrus. There were young people there, but they were
slightly d^ad. In the ante-chamber, the liveries were old.
These personages, completely out of date, were served by
domestics oc the same kind. Altogether they had the appear-
ance of haviig lived a long time ago, and of being obstinate with
the sepulchre. Conserve, Conservatism, Conservative, was
nearly all the dictionary; to be in good odour, was the point.
There was in fict something aromatic in the opinions of these
venerable groujs, and their ideas smelt of Indian herbs. It
was a mummy w^rld. The masters were embalmed, the valets
were stuffed.

A worthy old Aarchioness, a ruined emigree, having now
but one servant, continued to say: My people.
What was done inMadame de T.'s parlour ? They were ultra.
To be ultra; this >ord, although what it represents has not
perhaps disappeared,--this word has now lost its meanbg.
Let us explain it.

To be ultra is to go b&ond. It is to attack the sceptre in the
name of the throne, and -he mitre in the name of the altar; it
is to maltreat the thing yc; support; it is to kick in the traces;
it is to cavil at the stake f<r undercooking heretics; it is to re-
proach the idol with a lack <f idolatry; it is to insult by excess
of respect; it is to find in te pope too little papistry, in the

596

Les Miserables

king too little royalty, and too much light in the night; it is to
be dissatisfied with the albatross, with snow, with the svan,
and the lily in the name of whiteness; it is to be the partisan
of things to the point of becoming their enemy; it is to be so
very pro, that you are con.

The ultra spirit is a peculiar characteristic of the first olace
of the Restoration.

There was never anything in history like this little -vhile,
beginning in 1814, and ending about 1820, on the advent of
Monsieur de Villele, the practical man of the Right. These six
years were an extraordinary moment; at once brilliant and
gloomy, smiling and sombre, lighted as by the radiance of
dawn, and at the same time enveloped in the darkness of the
great catastrophes which still filled the horizon, though they
were slowly burying themselves in the past. There wes there,
in that light and that shade, a little world by itself, new and old,
merry and sad, juvenile and senile, rubbing its eyes; nothing
resembles an awaking so much as a return; a grovp which
looked upon France whimsically, and upon which France looked
with irony; streets full of good old owl marquises returned and
returning, " ci-devants," astounded at everything, kave and
noble gentlemen smiling at being in France, and weeping over
it also; delighted to see their country again, in despair at finding
their monarchy no more; the nobility of the crusides spitting
upon the nobility of the empire, that is to say t\e nobility of
the sword; historic races losing the meaning of history; sons
of the companions of Charlemagne disdaining tie companions
of Napoleon. Swords, as we have said, insuled each other;
the sword of Fontenoy was ridiculous, and nothing but rust;
the sword of Marengo was hateful, and notling but a sabre.
Formerly disowned Yesterday. The sense of the grand was
lost, as well as the sense of the ridiculous There was some-
body who called Bonaparte Scapin. Tha^ world is no more.
Nothing, we repeat, now remains of it. When we happen to
draw some form from it, and endeavour t> make it live again in
our thought, it seems as strange to us a?an antediluvian world.
It also, in fact, has been swallowed up Jy a deluge. It has dis-
appeared under two revolutions. Wh't floods are ideas ! How
quickly they cover all that they are commissioned to destroy and
to bury, and how rapidly they creat' frightful abysses !

Such was the character of the^alons in those far-off and
simple ages when M. Martainville ^as wittier than Voltaire.

These salons had a literature a<i politics of their own. They

Marius 597

believed in Fievee. M. Agier gave laws to them. They criti-
cised M. Colnet, the publicist of the bookstall of the Quai
Malaquais. Napoleon was nothing but the Corsican Ogre« At
a later day, the introduction into history of M. the Marquis de
Buonaparte, Lieutenant-General of the armies of the king, was
a concession to the spirit of the century.

These salons did not long maintain their purity. As early as
1818, doctrinaires began to bud out in them, a troublesome
species. Their style was to be royalists, and to apologise for it.
Just where the ultras were proudest, the doctrinaires were a
little ashamed. They were witty; they were silent; their
political dogmas were suitably starched with pride; they ought
to have been successful. They indulged in what was moreover
convenient, an excess of white cravat and close-buttoned coat.
The fault, or the misfortune of the doctrinaire-party was the
creation of an old youth. They assumed the postures of sages.
Their dream was to engraft upon an absolute and excessive
principle a limited power. They opposed, and sometimes with
a rare intelligence, destructive liberalism by conservative
liberalism. We heard them say: "Be considerate towards
royalism; it has done much real service. It has brought us
back tradition, worship, religion, respect. It is faithful, brave,
chivalric, loving, devoted. It comes to associate, although
with regret, to the new grandeur of the nation the old grandeur
of the monarchy. It is wrong in not comprehending the revo-
lution, the empire, glory, liberty, new ideas, new generations,
the century. But this wrong which it does us, have we not
sometimes done it the same ? The revolution, whose heirs we
are, ought to comprehend all. To attack royalism is a miscon-
ception of liberalism. What &• blunder, and what blindness?
Revolutionary France is wanting in respect for historic France,
that is to say for her mother, that is to say for herself. After
the 5th of September, the nobility of the monarchy is treated
as the nobility of the empire was treated after the 8th of July.
They were unjust towards the eagle, we are unjust towards the
fleur-de-lis. Must we then always have something to proscribe ?
Of what use is it to deface the crown of Louis XIV., or to scratch
off the escutcheon of Henry IV.? We rail at Monsieur de
Vaublanc who effaced the Ns. from the Bridge of Jena? But
what did he do? What we are doing. Bouvines belongs to us
as well as Marengo. The fleurs-de-lis are ours as well as the Ns.
They are our patrimony. What is gained by diminishing it?
We must not disown our country in the past more than in the

Les Miserables

present. Why not desire our whole history ? Why not love all
of France? "

This is the way in which the doctrinaires criticised and
patronised royalism, which was displeased at being criticised
and furious at being patronised.

The ultras marked the first period of royalism ; the assemblage
characterised the second. To fervency succeeded skill. Let
us not prolong this sketch.

In the course of this narrative, the author of this book found
in his path this strange moment of contemporary history; he
was obliged to glance at it in passing, and to trace some of the
singular lineaments of that society now unknown. But he does
it rapidly and without any bitter or derisive intention. Remini-
scences, affectionate and respectful, for they relate to his mother,
attach him to this period. Besides, we must say, that same little
world had its greatness. We may smile at it, but we can
neither despise it nor hate it. It was the France of former
times.

Marius Pontmercy went, like all children, through various
studies. When he left the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his
grandfather entrusted him to a worthy professor, of the purest
classic innocence. This young, unfolding soul passed from a
prude to a pedant. Marius had his years at college, then he
entered the law-school. He was royalist, fanatical, and austere.
He had little love for his grandfather, whose gaiety and cynicism
wounded him, and the place of his father was a dark void.

For the rest, he was an ardent but cool lad, noble, generous,
proud, religious, lofty; honourable even to harshness, pure even
to unsociableness.

END OF THE BRIGAND

THE completion of Marius' classical studies was coincident with
M. Gillenormand's retirement from the world. The old man
bade farewell to the Faubourg Saint Germain, and to Madame
de T.'s salon, and established himself in the Marais, at his house
in the Rue des Filles du Calvaire. His servants there were, in
addition to the porter, this chambermaid Nicolette who had
succeeded Magnon, and this short-winded and pursy Basque
whom we have already mentioned.
In 1827, Marius had just attained his eighteenth year. On

Marius 599

coming in one evening, he saw his grandfather with a letter in

his hand.

"Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will set out to-
morrow for Vernon."

" What for? " said Marius.
" To see your father."

Marius shuddered. He had thought of everything but this,
that a day might come, when he would have to see his father.
Nothing could have been more unlocked for, more surprising,
and, we must say, more disagreeable. It was aversion com-
pelled to intimacy. It was not chagrin; no, it was pure
drudgery.

Marius, besides his feelings of political antipathy, was con-
vinced that his father, the sabrer, as M. Gillenormand called
him in his gentler moments, did not love him; that was clear,
since he had abandoned him and left him to others. Feeling
that he was not loved at all, he had no love. Nothing more
natural, said he to himself.

He was so astounded that he did not question M. Gilleno]
mand. The grandfather continued:

" It appears that he is sick. He asks for you.
And after a moment of silence he added:
" Start to-morrow morning. I think there is at the Course:
Fontaines a conveyance which starts at six o'clock and arrives
at night. Take it. He says the case is urgent." _

Then he crumpled up the letter and put it m his pocket.
Marius could have started that evening and been with his
father the next morning. A diligence then made the trip to
Rouen from the Rue du Bouloi by night passing through Vernon.
Neither M. Gillenormand nor Marius thought of inquiring.

The next day at dusk, Marius arrived at Vernon. Candles
were just beginning to be lighted. He asked the first person he
met for the house of Monsieur Pontmercy. For in his feelings
he agreed with the Restoration, and he, too, recognised his father
neither as baron nor as colonel.

The house was pointed out to him. He rang ; a woman came
and opened the door with a small lamp m her hand.
" Monsieur Pontmercy ? " said Marius.
The woman remained motionless.
" Is it here? " asked Marius.
The woman gave an affirmative nod of the head.
" Can I speak with him? "
The woman gave a negative sign.

6oo Les Miserables

" But I am his son ! " resumed Marius. " He expects me."

" He expects you no longer," said the woman.

Then he perceived that she was in tears.

She pointed to the door of a low room; he entered.

In this room, which was lighted by a tallow candle on the
mantel, there were three men, one of them standing, one on his
knees, and one stripped to his shirt and lying at full length upon
the floor. The one upon the floor was the colonel.

The two others were a physician and a priest who was praying.

The colonel had been three days before attacked with a brain
fever. At the beginning of the sickness, having a presentiment
of ill, he had written to Monsieur Gillenormand to ask for his
son. He had grown worse. On the very evening of Marius ;
arrival at Vernon, the colonel had had a fit of delirium; he
sprang out of his bed in spite of the servant, crying: " My son
has not come ! I am going to meet him ! " Then he had gone
out of his room and fallen upon the floor of the hall. He had
but just died.

The doctor and the cure had been sent for. The doctor had
come too late, the cure had come too late. The son also had
come too late.

By the dim light of the candle, they could distinguish upon the
cheek of the pale and prostrate colonel a big tear which had
fallen from his death-stricken eye. The eye was glazed, but the
tear was not dry. This tear was for his son's delay.

Marius looked upon this man,, whom he saw for the first time,
and for the last — this venerable and manly face, these open eyes
which saw not, this white hair, these robust limbs upon which
he distinguished here and there brown lines which were sabre-
cuts, and a species of red stars which were bullet-holes. He
looked upon that gigantic scar which imprinted heroism upon
this face on which God had impressed goodness. He thought
that this man was his father and that this man was dead, and he
remained unmoved.

The sorrow which he experienced was the sorrow which he
would have felt before any other man whom he might have seen
stretched out in death.

Mourning, bitter mourning was in that room. The servant
was lamenting by herself in a corner, the cure was praying, and
his sobs were heard; the doctor was wiping his eyes ; the corpse
itself wept.

This doctor, this priest, and this woman, looked at Marius
through their affliction without saying a word; it was he who

Marius 60 1

was the stranger. Marius, too little moved, felt ashamed and
embarrassed at his attitude ; he had his hat in his hand, he let
it fall to the floor, to make them believe that grief deprived him
of strength to hold it.

At the same time he felt something like remorse, and he
despised himself for acting thus. But was it his fault? He
did not love his father, indeed !

The colonel left nothing. The sale of his furniture hardly paid
for his burial. The servant found a scrap of paper which she
handed to Marius. It contained this, in the handwriting of the
colonel:

" For my Son. — The emperor made me a baron upon the
battle-field of Waterloo. Since the Restoration contests this
title which I have bought with my blood, my son will take it
and bear it. I need not say that he will be worthy of it." On
the back, the colonel had added: "At this same battle of
Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. This man's name is
Thenardier. Not long ago, I believe he was keeping a little
tavern in a village in the suburbs of Paris, at Chelles or at Mont-
fermeil. If my son meets him, he will do Thenardier all the
service he can."

Not from duty towards his father, but on account of that
vague respect for death which is always so imperious in the
heart of man, Marius took this paper and pressed it.

No trace remained of the colonel. Monsieur Gillenormand
had his sword and uniform sold to a second-hand dealer. The
neighbours stripped the garden and carried off the rare flowers.
The other plants became briery and scraggy, and died.

Marius remained only forty-eight hours at Vernon. After
the burial, he returned to Paris and went back to his law,
thinking no more of his father than if he had never lived. In
two days the colonel had been buried, and in three days forgotten.

Marius wore crape on his hat. That was all.

THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, TO BECOME
REVOLUTIONARY

MARIUS had preserved the religious habits of his childhood.
One Sunday he had gone to hear mass at Saint Sulpice, at this
same chapel of the Virgin to which his aunt took him when he
was a little boy, and being that day more absent-minded and

602 Les Miserables

dreamy than usual, he took his place behind a pillar and knelt
down, without noticing it, before a Utrecht velvet chair, on the
back of which this name was written : Monsieur Mabeuf, church-
warden. The mass had hardly commenced when an old man
presented himself and said to Marius:

" Monsieur, this is my place."

Marius moved away readily, and the old man took his chair.

After mass, Marius remained absorbed in thought a few steps
distant; the old man approached him again and said: " I beg
your pardon, monsieur, for having disturbed you a little while
ago, and for disturbing you again now; but you must have
thought me impertinent, and I must explain myself."

" Monsieur," said Marius, " it is unnecessary."

" Yes! " resumed the old man; " I do not wish you to have
a bad opinion of me. You see I think a great deal of that place.
It seems to me that the mass is better there. Why ? I will tell
you. To that place I have seen for ten years, regularly, every
two or three months, a poor, brave father come, who had no
other opportunity and no other way of seeing his child, being
prevented through some family arrangements. He came at
the hour when he knew his son was brought to mass. The little
one never suspected that his father was here. He did not even
know, perhaps, that he had a father, the innocent boy 1 . The
father, for his part, kept behind a pillar, so that nobody should
see him. He looked at his child, and wept. This poor man
worshipped this little boy. I saw that. This place has become
sanctified, as it were, for me, and I have acquired the habit of
coining here to hear mass. I prefer it to the bench, where I
have a right to be as a warden. I was even acquainted slightly
with this unfortunate gentleman. He had a father-in-law, a rich
aunt, relatives, I do not remember exactly, who threatened to
disinherit the child if he, the father, should see him. He had
sacrificed himself that his son might some day be rich and happy.
They were separated by political opinions. Certainly I approve
of political opinions, but there are people who do not know
where to stop. Bless me! because a man was at Waterloo he
is not a monster; a father is not separated from his child for that.
He was one of Bonaparte's colonels. He is dead, I believe.
He lived at Vernon, where my brother is cur6, and his name is
something like Pontmarie, or Montpercy. He had a handsome
sabre cut."

" Pontmercy," said Marius, turning pale.

" Exactly; Pontmercy. Did you know him? "

Marius 693

" Monsieur," said Marius, " he was my father."

The old churchwarden clasped his hands, and exclaimed — •

" Ahl you are the child! Yes, that is it; he ought to be a

man now. Well 1 poor child, you can say that you had a father

who loved you well."
Marius offered his arm to the old man, and walked with him

to his house. Next day he said to Monsieur Gillenormand : —
" We have arranged a hunting party with a few friends. Will

you permit me to be absent for three days ? "

" Four," answered the grandfather; " go; amuse yourself."
And, with a wink he whispered to his daughter —
"Some love affair 1"

WHAT IT IS TO HAVE MET A CHURCHWARDEN

WHERE Marius went we shall see a little further on.

Marius was absent three days, then he returned to Paris, went
straight to the library of the law-school, and asked for the file
>of the Moniteur.

He read the Moniteur ; he read all the histories of the republic
:and the empire; the Memorial de Sainte-Helene ; all the
;memoirs, journals, bulletins, proclamations; he devoured
everything. The first time he met his father's name in the
bulletins of the grand army he had a fever for a whole week. He
went -to see the generals under whom George Pontmercy had
served — among others, Count H. The churchwarden, Mabeuf,
whom he had gone to see again, gave him an account of the
life at Vernon, the colonel's retreat, his flowers and his solitude.
Marius came to understand fully this rare, sublime, and gentle
man, this .sort of lion-lamb who was his father.

In the meantime, engrossed in this study, which took up all
his time, as well as all his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenor-
mands more. At the hours of meals he appeared; then when
they looked for him, he was gone. The aunt grumbled. The
grandfather smiled. " Poh, poh! it is the age for the lasses! "
Sometimes the old man added: "The devil! I thought that
it was some gallantry. It seems to be a passion."

It was a passion, indeed. Marius was on the way to adoration
for his father.

At the same time an extraordinary change took place in his
ideas. The phases of this change were numerous and gradual.

6<P4 Les Miserables

As this is the history of many minds of our time, we deem it
useful to follow these phases step by step, and to indicate them
all.

This history on which he had now cast his eyes, startled him.

The first effect was bewilderment.

The republic,, the empire, had been to him, till then, nothing
but monstrous words. The republic, a guillotine in a twilight ;
the empire, a sabre in the night. He had looked into them, and
there, where he expected to find only a chaos of darkness, he
had seen, with a sort of astounding surprise, mingled with
fear and joy, stars shining, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint- Just,
Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Danton, and a sun rising,
Napoleon. He knew not where he was. He recoiled blinded by
the splendours. Little by little, the astonishment passed away,
he accustomed himself to this radiance; he looked upon acts
without dizziness, he examined personages without error; the
revolution and the empire set themselves in luminous per-
spective before his straining eyes; he saw each of these two
groups of events and men arrange themselves into two enor-
mous facts : the republic into the sovereignty of the civic right
restored to the masses, the empire into the sovereignty of the
French idea imposed upon Europe; he saw spring out of the
revolution the grand figure of the people, and out of the
empire the grand figure of France. He declared to himself
that all that had been good.

What his bewilderment neglected in this first far too synthetic
appreciation, we do not think it necessary to indicate here. We
are describing the state of a mind upon the march. Progress
is not accomplished at a bound. Saying this, once for all, for
what precedes as well as for what is to follow, we continue.

He perceived then that up to that time he had comprehended
his country no more than he had his father. He had known
neither one nor the other, and he had had a sort of voluntary
night over his eyes. He now saw, and on the one hand he
admired, on the other he worshipped.

He was full of regret and remorse, and he thought with
despair that all he had in his soul he could say now only to a
tomb. Oh ! if his father were living, if he had had him still,
if God in his mercy and in his goodness had permitted that his
father might be still alive, how he would have run, how he
would have plunged headlong, how he would have cried to his
father: "Father! I am here! it is I! my heart is the same as
yours ! I am your son ! " How he would have embraced his

Marius 605

white head, wet his hair with tears, gazed upon his scar, pressed
his hands, worshipped his garments, kissed his feet! oh! why
had this father died so soon, before the adolescence, before the
justice, before the love of his son ! Marius had a continual sob
in his heart which said at every moment: "Alas!" At the
same time he became more truly serious, more truly grave,
surer of his faith and his thought. Gleams of the true came
at every instant to complete his reasoning. It was like an
interior growth. He felt a sort of natural aggrandisement
which these two new things, his father and his country, brought
to him.

As when one has a key, everything opened; he explained to
himself what he had hated, he penetrated what he had abhorred;
he saw clearly henceforth the providential, divine, and human
meaning of the great things which he had been taught to detest,
and the great men whom he had been instructed to curse.
When he thought of his former opinions, which were only of
yesterday, but which seemed so ancient to him already, he
became indignant at himself, and he smiled. From the re-
habilitation of his father he had naturally passed to the
rehabilitation of Napoleon.

This, however, we must say, was not accomplished without
labour.

From childhood he had been imbued with the judgment of
the party of 1814 in regard to Bonaparte. Now, all the preju-
dices of the Restoration, all its interests, all its instincts, tended
to the disfigurement of Napoleon. It execrated him still more
than it did Robespierre. It made skilful use of the fatigue of
the nation and the hatred of mothers. Bonaparte had become
a sort of monster almost fabulous, and to depict him to the
imagination of the people, which, as we have already said,
resembles the imagination of children, the party of 1814 present
in succession every terrifying mask, from that which is terrible,
while yet it is grand, to that which is terrible in the grotesque,
from Tiberius to Bugaboo. Thus, in speaking of Bonaparte,
you might either weep, or burst with laughter, provided hatred
was the basis. Marius had never had — about that man, as he
was called — any other ideas in his mind. They had grown
together with the tenacity of his nature. There was in him a
complete little man who was devoted to hatred of Napoleon.

On reading his history, especially in studying it in documents
and materials, the veil which covered Napoleon from Marius'
eyes gradually fell away. He perceived something immense,

606 Les Miserables

and suspected that he had been deceiving himself up to that
moment about Bonaparte as well as about everything else;
each day he saw more clearly; and he began to mount slowly,
step by step, in the beginning almost with regret, afterwards
with rapture, and as if drawn by an irresistible fascination, at
first the sombre stages, then the dimly lighted stages, finally the
luminous and splendid stages of enthusiasm.

One night he was alone in his little room next the roof. His
candle was lighted; he was reading, leaning on his table by the
open window. All manner of reveries came over him from the
expanse of space and mingled with his thought. What a spec-
tacle is night ! We hear dull sounds, not knowing whence they
come; we see Jupiter, twelve hundred times larger than the
earth, glistening like an ember, the welkin is black, the stars
sparkle, it is terror-inspiring.

He was reading the bulletins of the Grand Army, those heroic
strophes written on the battle-field; he saw there at intervals
his father's name, the emperor's name everywhere; the whole
of the grand empire appeared before him; he felt as if a tide
were swelling and rising within him; it seemed to him at
moments that his father was passing by him like a breath, and
whispering in his ear; gradually he grew wandering ; bethought
he heard the drums, the cannon, the trumpets, the measured
tread of the battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the cavalry ;
from time to time he lifted his eyes to the sky and saw the
colossal constellations shining in the limitless abysses, then they
fell back upon the book, and saw there other colossal things
moving about confusedly. His heart was full. He was trans-
ported, trembling, breathless ; suddenly, without himself know-
ing what moved him, or what he was obeying, he arose, stretched
his arms out of the window, gazed fixedly into the gloom, the
silence, the darkling infinite, the eternal immensity, and cried :
Vive Pempereur!

From that moment it was all over; the Corsican Ogre — the
usurper — the tyrant — the monster who was the lover of his
sisters — the actor who took lessons from Talma — the poisoner
of Jaffa — the tiger — Buonaparte — all this vanished, and gave
place in his mind to a suffused and brilliant radiance in which
shone out from an inaccessible height the pale marble phantom
of Caesar. The emperor had been to his father only the beloved
captain, whom one admires, and for whom one devotes himself;
to Marius he was something more. He was the predestined
constructor of the French group, succeeding the Roman group

Marius 607

in the mastery of the world. He was the stupendous architect
of a downfall, the successor of Charlemagne, of Louis XI., of
Henry IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee
of Public Safety, having doubtless his blemishes, his faults, and
even his crimes, that is to say being man; but august in his
faults, brilliant in his blemishes, mighty in his crimes.

He was the man foreordained to force all nations to say: the
Grand Nation. He was better still; he was the very incarna-
tion of France, conquering Europe by the sword which he held,
and the world by the light which he shed. Marius saw in
Bonaparte the flashing spectre which will always rise upon the
frontier, and which will guard the future. Despot, but dictator;
despot resulting from a republic and summing up a revolution.
Napoleon became to him the people-man as Jesus is the God-man.

We see, like all new converts to a religion, his conversion
intoxicated him, he plunged headlong into adhesion, and he
went too far. His nature was such; once upon a descent it
was almost impossible for him to hold back. Fanaticism for
the sword took possession of him, and became complicated in
his mind with enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive
that along with genius, and indiscriminately, he was admiring
force, that is to say that he was installing in the two compart-
ments of his idolatry, on one side what is divine, and on the
other what is brutal. In several respects he began to deceive
himself in other matters. He admitted everything. There is
a way of meeting error while on the road of truth. He had a
sort of wilful implicit faith which swallowed everything in mass.
On the new path upon which he had entered, in judging the
crimes of the ancient regime as well as in measuring the glory
of Napoleon, he neglected the attenuating circumstances.

However this might be, a great step had been taken. Where
he had formerly seen the fall of the monarchy, he now saw the
advent of France. His pole-star was changed. What had
been the setting, was now the rising of the sun. He had turned
around.

All these revolutions were accomplished in him without a
suspicion of it in his family.

When, in this mysterious labour, he had entirely cast off his
old Bourbon and ultra skin, when he had shed the aristocrat,
the Jacobite, and the royalist, when he was_ fully revolutionary,
thoroughly democratic, and almost republican, he went to an
engraver on the Quai des Orfevres, and ordered a hundred cards
bearing this name : Baron Marius Ponimercy.

608 Les Miserables

This was but a very logical consequence of the change which
had taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated
about his father.

However, as he knew nobody, and could not leave his cards
at anybody's door, he put them in his pocket.

By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew
nearer to his father, his memory, and the things for which the
colonel had fought for twenty-five years, he drew off from his
grandfather. As we have mentioned, for a long time M. Gille-
normand's capriciousness had been disagreeable to him. There
was already between them all the distaste of a serious young
man for a frivolous old man. Geront's gaiety shocks and exas-
perates Werther's melancholy. So long as the same political
opinions and the same ideas had been common to them, Marius
had met M. Gillenormand by means of them as if upon a bridge.
When this bridge fell, the abyss appeared. And then, above
all, Marius felt inexpressibly revolted when he thought that M.
Gillenormand, from stupid motives, had pitilessly torn him
from the colonel, thus depriving the father of the child, and the
child of the father.

Through affection and veneration for his father, Marius had
almost reached aversion for his grandfather.

Nothing of this, however, as we have said, was betrayed
externally. Only he was more and more frigid; laconic at
meals, and scarcely ever in the house. When his aunt scolded
him for it, he was very mild, and gave as an excuse his studies,
courts, examinations, dissertations, etc. The grandfather did
not change his infallible diagnosis : " In love ? I understand it."

Marius was absent for a while from time to time.

" Where can he go to? " asked the aunt.

On one of these journeys, which were always very short, he
went to Montfermeil in obedience to the injunction which his
father had left him, and sought for the former sergeant of
Waterloo, the innkeeper Thenardier. Thenardier had failed,
the inn was closed, and nobody knew what had become of him.
While making these researches, Marius was away from the
house four days.

" Decidedly," said the grandfather, " he is going astray."

They thought they noticed that he wore something, upon
his breast and under his shirt, hung from his neck by a black
ribbon.

Marius 609

VII

SOME PETTICOAT

WE have spoken of a lancer.

He was a grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand's on the paternal
side, who passed his life away from his family, and far from all
domestic hearths in garrison. Lieutenant Theodule Gillenor-
mand fulfilled all the conditions required for what is called
a handsome officer. He had " the waist of a girl," a way of
trailing the victorious sabre, and a curling mustache. He came
to Paris very rarely, so rarely that Marius had never seen him.
The two cousins knew each other only by name. Theodule was,
we think we have mentioned, the favourite of Aunt Gillenor-
mand, who preferred him because she did not see him. Not
seeing people permits us to imagine in them every perfection.

One morning, Mile. Gillenormand the elder had retired to her
room as much excited as her placidity allowed. Marius had
asked his grandfather again for permission to make a short
journey, adding that he intended to set out that evening.
"Go!" the grandfather had answered, and M. Gillenormand
had added aside, lifting his eyebrows to the top of his forehead :
" He is getting to be an old offender." Mile. Gillenormand
had returned to her room very much perplexed, dropping this
exclamation point on the stairs: "That is pretty!" and this
interrogation point: " But where can he be going? " She
imagined some more or less illicit affair of the heart, a woman
in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would not
have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into it. The taste of
a mystery resembles the first freshness of a slander; holy souls
never despise that. There is in the secret compartments of
bigotry some curiosity for scandal.

She was therefore a prey to a blind desire for learning a story.

As a diversion from this curiosity which was giving her a
little more agitation than she allowed herself, she took refuge
in her talents, and began to festoon cotton upon cotton, in one
of those embroideries of the time of the empire and the restora-
tion in which a great many cab wheels appear. Clumsy work,
crabbed worker. She had been sitting in her chair for some
hours when the door opened. Mile. Gillenormand raised her
eyes; Lieutenant Theodule was before her making the regula-
tion bow. She uttered a cry of pleasure. You may be old,
i u

6io Les Miserables

you may be prude, you may be a bigot, you may be his aunt,
but it is always pleasant to see a lancer enter your room.

" You here, Th6odule! " exclaimed she.

" On my way, aunt."

" Embrace me then."

" Here goes 1 " said Th6odule.

And he embraced her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her
secretary, and opened it.

" You stay with us at least all the week? "

" Aunt, I leave this evening."

"Impossible!"

" Mathematically."

" Stay, my dear Thdodule, I beg you."

" The heart says yes, but my orders say no. The story is
simple. Our station is changed; we were at Melun, we are sent
to Gaillon. To go from the old station to the new, we must
pass through Paris. I said: I am going to go and see my aunt."

" Take this for your pains."

She put ten louis into his hand.

" You mean for my pleasure, dear aunt."

Th6odule embraced her a second time, and she had the
happiness of having her neck a little chafed by the braid of
his uniform.

" Do you make the journey on horseback with your regi-
ment? " she asked.

" No, aunt. I wanted to see you. I have a special permit.
My servant takes my horse; I go by the diligence. And,
speaking of that, I have a question to ask you."

" What? "

" My cousin, Marius Pontmercy, is travelling also, is he? " .

" How do you know that? " exclaimed the aunt, her curiosity
suddenly excited to the quick.

" On my arrival, I went to the diligence to secure my place
in the coupe"."

" Well? "

" A traveller had already secured a place on the imperiale, I
saw his name on the book."

"What name?"

" Marius Pontmercy."

"The wicked fellow!" exclaimed the aunt. "Ah! your
cousin is not a steady boy like you. To think that he is going
to spend the night in a diligence."

" Like me."

Marius 6 1 1

" But for you, it is from duty ; for him, it is from dissipation."

" What is the odds? " said Th<k>dule.

Here, an event occurred in the life of Mademoiselle Gille-
normand the elder; she had an idea. If she had been a man,
she would have slapped her forehead. She apostrophised
Theodule :

" Are you sure that your cousin does not know you ? "

" Yes. I have seen him; but he has never deigned to
notice me."

" And you are going to travel together so? "

" He on the impeYiale, I in the coup6."

" Where does this diligence go? "

" To Les Andelys."

" Is there where Marius is going ? "

" Unless, like me, he stops on the road. I get off at Vernon
to take the branch for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius's
route."

" Marius ! what an ugly name ! What an idea it was to name
him Marius I But you at least — your name is Theodule ! "

" I would rather it were Alfred/' said the officer.

" Listen, Theodule."

" I am listening, aunt."

" Pay attention."

" I am paying attention."

" Are you ready ? "

" Yes."

" Well, Marius is often away."

"Eh! eh!"

" He travels."

"Ah! ah!"

" He sleeps away."

"Oh! oh!"

" We want to know what is at the bottom of it."

Theodule answered with the calmness of a man of bronze :

" Some petticoat."

And with that stifled chuckle which reveals certainty, he
added:

" A lass."

" That is clear," exclaimed the aunt, who thought she heard
Monsieur Gillenormand speak, and who felt her conviction
spring irresistibly from this word lass, uttered almost in the
same tone by the grand-uncle and the grand-nephew. She
resumed :

6 1 2 Les Miserables

" Do us a kindness. Follow Marius a little way. He does
not know you, it will be easy for you. Since there is a lass,
try to see the lass. You can write us the account. It will
amuse grandfather."

Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort of watching;
but he was much affected by the ten louis, and he thought he
saw a possible succession of them. He accepted the commission
and said: " As you please, aunt." And he added aside: " There
I am, a duenna."

Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him.

" You would not play such pranks, Theodule. You are
obedient to discipline, you are the slave of your orders, you are
a scrupulous and dutiful man, and you would not leave your
family to go to see such a creature."

The lancer put on the satisfied grimace of Cartouche praised
for his honesty.

Marius, on the evening which followed this dialogue, mounted
the diligence without suspecting that he was watched. As to
the watchman, the first thing that he did, was to fall asleep.
His slumber was sound and indicated a clear conscience. Argus
snored all night.

At daybreak, the driver of the diligence shouted: " Vernon!
Vernon relay ! passengers for Vernon ? " And Lieutenant
Th6odule awoke.

" Good," growled he, half asleep, " here I get off."

Then, his memory clearing up by degrees, an effect of awaken-
ing, he remembered his aunt, the ten louis, and the account he
was to render of Marius's acts and deeds. It made him laugh.

" Perhaps he has left the coach," thought he, while he
buttoned up his undress waistcoat. " He may have stopped
at Poissy ; he may have stopped at Triel ; if he did not get off
at Meulan, he may have got off at Mantes, unless he got off at
Rolleboise, or unless he only came to Pacy, with the choice
of turning to the left towards Evreux, or to the right towards
Laroche Guyon. Run after him, aunt. What the devil shall
I write to her, the good old woman ? "

At this moment a pair of black pantaloons getting down from
the imperiale, appeared before the window of the coupe.

" Can that be Marius? " said the lieutenant.

It was Marius.

A little peasant girl, beside the coach, among the horses and
postillions, was offering flowers to the passengers. " Flowers
for your ladies/' cried she.

Marius 6 1 3

Marius approached her and bought the most beautiful flowers
•in her basket.

" Now," said Theodule leaping down from the coach, " there
is something that interests me. Who the deuce is he going to
carry those flowers to ? It ought to be a mighty pretty woman
for so fine a bouquet. I would like to see her."

And, no longer now by command, but from personal curiosity,
like those dogs who hunt on their own account, he began to
follow Marius.

Marius paid no attention to Theodule. Some elegant women
got out of the diligence ; he did not look at them. He seemed
to see nothing about him.

" Is he in love? " thought Th6odule.

Marius walked towards the church.

" All right," said Theodule to himself. " The church ! that
is it. These rendezvous which are spiced with a bit of mass
are the best of all. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which
passes across the good God."

Arriving at the church, Marius did not go in, but went behind
the building. He disappeared at the corner of one of the but-
tresses of the apsis.

" The rendezvous is outside," said Theodule. " Let us see
the lass."

And he advanced on tiptoe towards the corner which Marius
had turned.

On reaching it, he stopped, astounded.

Marius, his face hid in his hands, was kneeling in the grass,
upon a grave. He had scattered his bouquet. At the end of
the grave, at an elevation which marked the head, there was a
black wooden cross, with this name in white letters: COLONEL
BARON PONTMERCY. He heard Marius sobbing.

The lass was a tomb.

VIII

MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE

IT was here that Marius had come the first time that he absented
himself from Paris. It was here that he returned every time
that M. Gillenormand said: he sleeps out.

Lieutenant Theodule was absolutely disconcerted by this
unexpected encounter with a sepulchre ; he experienced a dis-
agreeable and singular sensation which he was incapable of

6 14 Les Miserables

analysing, and which was made up of respect for a tomb mingled
with respect for a colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone
in the churchyard, and there was something of discipline in this
retreat. Death appeared to him with huge epaulets, and he gave
him almost a military salute. Not knowing what to write to his
aunt, he decided to write nothing at all ; and probably nothing
would have resulted from the discovery made by Theodule in
regard to Marius' amours, had not, by one of those mysterious
arrangements so frequently accidental, the scene at Vernon
been almost immediately followed by a sort of counter-blow
at Paris.

Marius returned from Vernon early in the morning of the third
day, was set down at his grandfather's, and, fatigued by the two
nights passed in the diligence, feeling the need of making up for
his lack of sleep by an hour at the swimming school, ran quickly
up to his room, took only time enough to lay off his travelling
coat and the black ribbon which he wore about his neck, and
went away to the bath.

M. Gillenormand, who had risen early like all old persons who
are in good health, had heard him come in, and hastened as
fast as he could with his old legs, to climb to the top of the stairs
where Marius' room was, that he might embrace him, question
him while embracing him, and find out something about where
he came from.

But the youth had taken less time to go down than the octo-
genarian to go up, and when Grandfather Gillenormand entered
the garret room, Marius was no longer there.

The bed was not disturbed, and upon the bed were displayed
without distrust the coat and the black ribbon.

" I like that better," said M. Gillenormand.

And a moment afterwards he entered the parlour where
Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was already seated,
embroidering her cab wheels.

The entrance was triumphal.

M. Gillenormand held in one hand the coat and in the other
the neck ribbon, and cried :

" Victory ! We are going to penetrate the mystery 1 we shall
know the end of the end, we shall feel of the libertinism of our
trickster I here we are with the romance even. I have the
portrait I"

In fact, a black shagreen box, much like to a medallion, was
fastened to the ribbon.

The old man took this box and looked at it some time without

Marius 6i(

opening it, with that air of desire, ravishment, and anger, with
which a poor, hungry devil sees an excellent dinner pass under
ms nose, when it is not for him.

"For it is evidently a portrait. I know all about that
This is worn tenderly upon the heart. What fools they are!
borne abominable quean, enough to make one shudder probably !
Young folks have such bad taste in these days I "

" Let us see, father," said the old maid.

The box opened by pressing a spring. They found nothing
in it but a piece of paper carefully folded.

" From the same to the same," said M. Gillenormand, bursting
with laughter. " I know what that is. A love-letter ! "

" Ah ! then let us read it ! " said the aunt.

And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and
read this:

" For my son, — The emperor made me a baron upon the battle-
field of Waterloo. Since the restoration contests this title which
[ have bought with my blood, my son will take it and bear it
I need not say that he will be worthy of it."

The feelings of the father and daughter cannot be described
They felt chilled as by the breath of a death's head. They did
not exchange a word. M. Gillenormand, however, said in a low
voice, and as if talking to himself:

" It is the handwriting of that sabrer."

The aunt examined the paper, turned it on all sides, then put
it back in the box.

Just at that moment, a little oblong package, wrapped in blue
paper, fell from a pocket of the coat. Mademoiselle Gillenor-
mand picked it up and unfolded the blue paper. It was Marius'
hundred cards. She passed one of them to M. Gillenormand,
who read : Baron Marius Pontmercy.

The old man rang. Nicolette came. M. Gillenormand took
the ribbon, the box, and the coat, threw them all on the floor
in the middle of the parlour, and said :

" Take away those things."

A full hour passed in complete silence. The old man and the
old maid sat with their backs turned to one another, and were
probably, each on their side, thinking over the same things.
At the end of that hour, aunt Gillenormand said-

" Pretty! "

A few minutes afterwards, Marius made his appearance. He
came in. Even before crossing the threshold of the parlour,
he perceived his grandfather holding one of his cards in his'

616 Les Miserables

hand, who, on seeing him, exclaimed with his crushing air of
sneering, bourgeois superiority:

" Stop ! stop ! stop ! stop ! stop ! you are a baron now. I
present you my compliments. What does this mean ? "

Marius coloured slightly, and answered :

" It means that I am my father's son."

M. Gillenormand checked his laugh, and said harshly:

"Your father; I am your father."

" My father," resumed Marius with downcast eyes and stern
manner, " was a humble and heroic man, who served the republic
and France gloriously, who was great in the greatest history
that men have ever made, who lived a quarter of a century in
the camp, by day under grape and under balls, by night in the
snow, in the mud, and in the rain, who captured colours, who
received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandonded,
and who had but one fault; that was in loving too dearly two
ingrates, his country and me."

This was more than M. Gillenormand could listen to. At the
word, Republic, he rose, or rather, sprang to his feet. Every
one of the words which Marius had pronounced, had produced
the effect upon the old royalist's face, of a blast from a bellows
upon a burning coal. From dark he had become red, from
red purple, and from purple glowing.

"Marius!" exclaimed he, "abominable child! I don't
know what your father was ! I don't want to know ! I know
nothing about him and I don't know him ! but what I do know
is, that there was never anything but miserable wretches among
all that rabble ! that they were all beggars, assassins, red caps,
thieves! I say all! I say all! I know nobody! I say all!
do you hear, Marius? Look you, indeed, you are as much a
baron as my slipper! they were all bandits who served Robe-
spierre! all brigands who served B-u-o-naparte ! all traitors
who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed! their legitimate king! all
cowards who ran from the Prussians and English at Waterloo I
That is what I know. If your father is among them I don't
know him, I am sorry for it, so much the worse, your servant ! "

In his turn, Marius now became the coa5, and M. Gillenormand
the bellows. Marius shuddered in every limb, he knew not what
to do, his head burned. He was the priest who sees all his wafers
thrown to the winds, the fakir who sees a passer-by spit upon his
idol. He could not allow such things to be said before him
unanswered. But what could he do? His father had been
crodden under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by

Marius 617

whom? by his grandfather. How should he avenge the one
without outraging the other? It was impossible for him to
insult his grandfather, and it was equally impossible for him not
to avenge his father. On one hand a sacred tomb, on the other
white hairs. He was for a few moments dizzy and staggering
with all this whirlwind in his head; then he raised his eyes,
looked straight at his grandfather, and cried in a thundering
voice :

" Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog Louis XVIII. ! "

Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but it was all
the same to him.

The old man, scarlet as he was, suddenly became whiter than
his hair. He turned towards a bust of the Duke de Berry which
stood upon the mantle, and bowed to it profoundly with a sort
of peculiar majesty. Then he walked twice, slowly and in silence,
from the fireplace to the window and from the window to the
fireplace, traversing the whole length of the room and making
the floor crack as if an image of stone were walking over it. The
second time, he bent towards his daughter, who was enduring
the shock with the stupor of an aged sheep, and said to her with
a smile that was almost calm :

"A baron like Monsieur and a bourgeois like me cannot
remain under the same roof."

And all at once straightening up, pallid, trembling, terrible,
his forehead swelling with the fearful radiance of anger, he
stretched his arm towards Marius and cried to him:

" Be off."

Marius left the house.

The next day, M. Gillenormand said to his daughter:

" You will send sixty pistoles every six months to this blood-
drinker, and never speak of him to me again."

Having an immense residuum of fury to expend, and not
knowing what to do with it, he spoke to his daughter with
coldness for more than three months.

Marius, for his part, departed in indignation. A circumstance,
which we must mention, had aggravated his exasperation still
more. There are always such little fatalities complicating
domestic dramas. Feelings are embittered by them, although
in reality the faults are none the greater. In hurriedly carrying
away, at the old man's command, Marius' " things " to his room,
Nicolette had, without perceiving it, dropped, probably on the
garret stairs, which were dark, the black shagreen medallion
which contained the paper written by the colonel. Neither

618 Les Miserables

the paper nor the medallion could be found. Marius was con-
vinced that " Monsieur Gillenormand " — from that day forth
he never named him otherwise — had thrown " his father's will "
into the fire. He knew by heart the few lines written by the
colonel, and consequently nothing was lost. But the paper, the
writing, that sacred relic, all that was his heart itself. What
had been done with it ?

Marius went away without saying where he was going, and
without knowing where he was going, with thirty francs, his
watch, and a few clothes in a carpet bag. He hired a cabriolet
by the hour, jumped in, and drove at random towards the Latin
quarter.

What was Marius to do?

BOOK FOURTH
THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC

A GROUP WHICH ALMOST BECAME HISTORIC

AT that period, apparently indifferent, something of a revolu-
tionary thrill was vaguely felt, Whispers coming from the
depths of '89 and of '92 were in the air. Young Paris was,
excuse the expression, in the process of moulting. People
were transformed almost without suspecting it, by the very
movement of the time. The hand which moves over the dial
moves also among souls. Each one took the step forward which
was before him, Royalists became liberals, liberals became
democrats.

It was like a rising tide, complicated by a thousand ebbs;
the peculiarity of the ebb is to make mixtures; thence very
singular combinations of ideas; men worshipped at the same
time Napoleon and liberty. We are now writing history. These
were the mirages of that day. Opinions pass through phases.
Voltairian royalism, a grotesque variety, had a fellow not less
strange, Bonapartist liberalism.

Other groups of minds were more serious. They fathomed
principle ; they attached themselves to right. They longed for
the absolute, they caught glimpses of the infinite realisations;
the absolute, by its very rigidity, pushes the mind towards the
boundless, and makes it float in the illimitable. There is nothing
like dream to create the future, Utopia to-day, flesh and blood
to-morrow.

Advanced opinions had double foundations. The appearance
of mystery threatened " the established order of things," which
was sullen and suspicious — a sign in the highest degree revolu
tionary. The reservations of power meet the reservations of t1
people in the sap. The incubation of insurrections replies to 1
plotting of coups d'etat.

At that time there were not yet in France any of those un<
lying organisations like the German Tugendbund and the Ita

619

620 Les Miserables

Carbonari; but here and there obscure excavations were
branching out. La Cougourde was assuming form at Aixj
there was in Paris, among other affiliations of this kind, the
Society of the Friends of the ABC.

Who were the Friends of the ABC? A society having as
its aim, in appearance, the education of children; in reality,
the elevation of men.

They declared themselves the Friends of the A B C.1 The
dbaisse [the abased] were the people. They wished to raise
them up. A pun at which you should not laugh. Puns are
sometimes weighty in politics, witness the Castratus ad castra,
which made Narses a general of an army; witness, Barbari et
Barbarini ; witness, Fueros y Fttegos ; witness, Tu es Petrus et
super hanc Petram, etc., etc.

The Friends of the ABC were not numerous, it was a secret
society in the embryonic state; we should almost say a coterie,
if coteries produced heroes. They met in Paris, at two places,
near the Halles, in a wine shop called Corinihe, which will be
referred to hereafter, and near the Pantheon, in a little coffee-
house on the Place Saint Michel, called Le Cafe Musain, now
torn down; the first of these two places of rendezvous was
near the working-men, the second near the students.

The ordinary conventicles of the Friends of the ABC were held
in a back room of the Cafe Musain.

This room, quite distant from the cafe, with which it com-
municated by a very long passage, had two windows, and an
exit by a private stairway upon the little Rue des Gres. They
smoked, drank, played, and laughed there. They talked very
loud about everything, and in whispers about something else.
On the wall was nailed, an indication sufficient to awaken the
suspicion of a police officer, an old map of France under the
republic.

Most of the Friends of the ABC were students, in thorough
understanding with a few working-men. The names of the
principal are as follows. They belong to a certain extent to
history: Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Cour-
feyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle, Joly, Grantaire.

These young men constituted a sort of family among them-
selves, by force of friendship. All except Laigle were from the
South.

This was a remarkable group. It has vanished into the

1 A B C in French, is pronounced ah-bay-say, exactly like the French
word, abaisse.

Marius 621

invisible depths which are behind us. At the point of this
drama which we have now reached, it may not be useless to
throw a ray of light upon these young heads before the reader
sees them sink into the shadow of a tragic fate.

Enjolras, whom we have named first, the reason why will be
seen by-and-by, was an only son and was rich.

Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of
being terrible. He was angelically beautiful. He was Antinous
wild. You would have said, to see the thoughtful reflection
of his eye, that he had already, in some preceding existence,
passed through the revolutionary apocalypse. He had the
tradition of it like an eye-witness. He knew all the little details
of the grand thing, a pontifical and warrior nature, strange in a
youth. He was officiating and militant; from the immediate
point of view, a soldier of democracy; above the movement
of the time, a priest of the ideal. 'He had a deep eye, lids a
little red, thick under lip, easily becoming disdainful, and a
high forehead. Much forehead in a face is like much sky in a
horizon. Like certain young men of the beginning of this
century and the end of the last century, who became illustrious
in early life, he had an exceedingly youthful look, as fresh as a
young girl's, although he had hours of pallor. He was now a
man, but he seemed a child still. His twenty-two years of
age appeared seventeen; he was serious, he did not seem to
know that there was on the earth a being called woman. He
had but one passion, the right; but one thought, to remove all
obstacles. Upon Mount Aventine, he would have been Grac-
chus; in the Convention, he would have been Saint Just. He
hardly saw the roses, he ignored the spring, he did not hear
the birds sing ; Evadne's bare bosom would have moved him no
more than Aristogeiton ; to him, as to Harmodius, flowers were
good only to hide the sword. He was severe in his pleasures.
Before everything but the republic, he chastely dropped his eyes.
He was the marble lover of liberty. His speech was roughly
inspired and had the tremor of a hymn. He astonished you by
his soaring. Woe to the love affair that should venture to intrude
upon him ! Had any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue
Saint Jean de Beauvais, seeing this college boy's face, this form
of a page, those long fair lashes, those blue eyes, that hair flying
in the wind, those rosy cheeks, those pure lips, those exquisite
teeth, felt a desire to taste all this dawn, and tried her beauty
upon Enjolras, a surprising and terrible look would have sud-
denly shown her the great gulf, and taught her not to confound

622 Les Miserables

with the gallant cherubim of Beaumarchais the fearful cherubim
of Ezekiel.

Beside Enjolras who represented the logic of the revolution,
Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of
the revolution and its philosophy, there is this difference — that
its logic could conclude with war, while its philosophy could
only end in peace. Combeferre completed and corrected
Enjolras. He was lower and broader. His desire was to instil
into all minds the broad principles of general ideas; he said:
" Revolution, but civilisation; " and about the steep mountain
he spread the vast blue horizon. Hence, in all Combeferre's
views, there was something attainable and practicable. Re-
volution with Combeferre was more respirable than with En-
jolras. Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its
natural right. The first went as far as Robespierre ; the second
stopped at Condorcet. Cdmbeferre more than Enjolras lived
the life of the world generally. Had it been given to these
two young men to take a place in history, one would have been
the upright man, the other would have been the wise man.
Enjolras was more manly, Combeferre was more humane.
Homo and Vir indeed express the exact shade of difference.
Combeferre was gentle, as Enjolras was severe, from natural
purity. He loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word
man. He would have gladly said : Hombre, like the Spaniards.
He read everything, went to the threatres, attended the public
courts, learned the polarisation of light from Arago, was en-
raptured with a lecture in which Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire had
explained the double function of the exterior carotid artery
and the interior carotid artery, one of which supplies the face,
the other the brain; he kept pace with the times, followed
science step by step, confronted Saint Simon with Fourier,
deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebbles which he found
and talked about geology, drew a moth-butterfly from memory,
pointed out the mistakes in French in the dictionary of the
Academy, studied Puys6gur and Deleuze, affirmed nothing, not
even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts; looked over
the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared the future was
in the hands of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with
questions of education. He desired that society should work
without ceasing at the elevation of the intellectual and moral
level; at the coining of knowledge, at bringing ideas into cir-
culation, at the growth of the mind in youth; and he feared
that the poverty of the methods then in vogue, the meanness

Marius 623

of a literary world which was circumscribed by two or three
centuries, called classical, the tyrannical dogmatism of official
pedants, scholastic prejudices and routine, would result in
making artificial oyster-beds of our colleges. He was learned,
purist, precise, universal, a hard student, and at the same
time given to musing, " even chimerical," said his friends. He
believed in all the dreams: railroads, the suppression of suffering
in surgical operations, the fixing of the image in the camera
obscura, the electric telegraph, the steering of balloons. Little
dismayed, moreover, by the citadels built upon all sides against
the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices,
he was one of those who think that science will at last turn
the position. Enjolras was a chief; Combeferre was a guide.
You would have preferred to fight with the one and march with
the other. Not that Combeferre was not capable of fighting;
he did not refuse to close with an obstacle, and to attack it by
main strength and by explosion, but to put, gradually, by the
teaching of axioms and the promulgation of positive laws, the
the human race in harmony with its destinies, pleased him better ;
and of the two lights, his inclination was rather for illumination
than for conflagration. A fire would cause a dawn, undoubtedly,
but why not wait for the break of day ? A volcano enlightens,
but the morning enlightens still better. Combeferre, perhaps,
preferred the pure radiance of the beautiful to the glory of the
sublime. A light disturbed by smoke, an advance purchased
by violence, but half satisfied this tender and serious mind. A
headlong plunge of a people into the truth, a '93, startled him ;
still stagnation repelled him yet more, in it he felt putrefaction
and death; on the whole, he liked foam better than miasma,
and he preferred the torrent to the cess-pool, and the Falls of
Niagara to the Lake of Montfaucon. In short, he desired
neither halt nor haste. While his tumultuous friends, chival-
rously devoted to the absolute, adored and asked for splendid
revolutionary adventures, Combeferre inclined to let progress
do her work, — the good progress; cold, perhaps, but pure;
methodical, but irreproachable ! phlegmatic, but imperturbable.
Combeferre would have knelt down and clasped his hands, asking
that the future might come in all its radiant purity and that
nothing might disturb the unlimited virtuous development of
the people. " The good must be innocent," he repeated in-
cessantly. And in fact, if it is the grandeur of the revolution
to gaze steadily upon the dazzling ideal, and to fly to it through
the lightnings, with blood and fire in its talons, it is the beauty

624 Les Miserables

of progress to be without a stain ; and there is between Washing-
ton, who represents the one, and Danton, who incarnates the
other, the difference which separates the angel with the wings
of a swan, from the angel with the wings of an eagle.

Jean Prouvaire was yet a shade more subdued than Combe-
ferre. He called himself Jehan, from that little momentary
fancifulness which mingled with the deep and powerful move-
ment from which arose the study of the Middle Ages, then so
necessary. Jean Prouvaire was addicted to love; he cultivated
a pot of flowers, played on the flute, made verses, loved the
people, mourned over woman, wept over childhood, confounded
the future and God in the same faith, and blamed the revolution
for having cut off a royal head, that of Andre Chenier. His
voice was usually delicate, but at times suddenly became mascu-
line. He was well read, even to erudition, and almost an orienta-
list. Above all, he was good, and, a very natural thing to one
who knows how near goodness borders upon grandeur, in poetry
he preferred the grand. He understood Italian, Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew; and that served him only to read four poets:
Dante, Juvenal, ^Eschylus, and Isaiah. In French, he preferred
Corneille to Racine, and Agrippa d'Aubign6 to Corneille. He
was fond of strolling in fields of wild oats and blue-bells, and paid
almost as much attention to the clouds as to passing events.
His mind had two attitudes — one towards man, the other
towards God; he studied, or he contemplated. All day he
pondered over social questions : wages, capital, credit, marriage,
religion, liberty of thought, liberty of love, education, punish-
ment, misery, association, property, production and distribu-
tion, the lower enigma which covers the human ant-hill with a
shadow ; and at night he gazed upon the stars, those enormous
beings. Like Enjolras, he was rich, and an only son. He spoke
gently, bent his head, cast down his eyes, smiled with embar-
rassment, dressed badly, had an awkward air, blushed at nothing,
was very timid, still intrepid.

Feuilly was a fan-maker, an orphan, who with difficulty earned
three francs a day, and who had but one thought, to deliver the
world. He had still another desire — to instruct himself; which
he also called deliverance. He had taught himself to read and
write; all that he knew, he had learned alone. Feuilly was a
generous heart. He had an immense embrace. This orphan had
adopted the people. Being without a mother, he had meditated
upon his mother country. He was not willing that there should
be any man upon the earth without a country. He nurtured

Marius 625

within himself, with the deep divination of the man of the people,
what we now call the idea of nationality. He had learned history
expressly that he might base his indignation upon a knowledge
of its cause. In this new upper room of utopists particularly
interested in France, he represented the foreign nations. His
specialty was Greece, Poland, Hungary, the Danubian Pro-
vinces, and Italy. He uttered these names incessantly, in
season and out of season, with the tenacity of the right. Turkey
upon Greece and Thessaly, Russia upon Warsaw, Austria upon
Venice, these violations exasperated him. The grand high-
way robbery of 1772 excited him above all. There is no more
sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation; he was
eloquent with this eloquence. He was never done with that
infamous date, 1772, that noble and valiant people blotted out
by treachery, that threefold crime, that monstrous ambuscade,
prototype and pattern of all those terrible suppressions of states
which, since, have stricken several noble nations, and have, so
to say, erased the record of their birth. All the contemporary
assaults upon society date from the partition of Poland. The
partition of Poland is a theorem of which all the present political
crimes are corollaries. Not a despot, not a traitor, for a century
past, who has not vis6d, confirmed, countersigned, and set his
initials to, ne varietur, the partition of Poland. When you
examine the list of modern treasons, that appears first of all.
The Congress of Vienna took advice of this crime before con-
summating its own. The halloo was sounded by 1772, 1815 is
the quarry. Such was the usual text of Feuilly. This poor
working man had made himself a teacher of justice, and she
rewarded him by making him grand. For there is in fact
eternity in the right. Warsaw can no more be Tartar than
Venice can be Teutonic. The kings lose their labour at this,
and their honour. Sooner or later, the submerged country
floats to the surface and reappears. Greece again becomes
Greece, Italy again becomes Italy. The protest of the right
against the fact, persists for ever. The robbery of a people
never becomes prescriptive. These lofty swindles have no
future. You cannot pick the mark out of a nation as you can
out of a handkerchief.

Courfeyrac had a father whose name was M. de Courfeyrac.
One of the false ideas of the restoration in point of aristocracy
and nobility was its faith in the particle. The particle, we know .
has no significance. But the bourgeois of the time of La Minerve
considered this poor de so highly that men thought themselves

626 Les Miserables

obliged to renounce it. M. de Chauvelin called himself M.
Chauvelin, M. de Caumartin, M. Caumartin, M. de Constant de
Rebecque. Benjamin Constant, M. de Lafayette, M. Lafayette.
Courfeyrac did not wish to be behind, and called himself briefly
Courfeyrac.

We might almost, in what concerns Courfeyrac, stop here, and
content ourselves with saying as to the remainder : Courfeyrac,
see Tholomyes.

Courfeyrac had in fact that youthful animation which we
might call the diabolic beauty of the mind. In later life, this
dies out, like the playfulness of the kitten, and all that grace
ends, on two feet in the bourgeois, and on four paws in the
mouser.

This style of mind is transmitted from generation to genera-
tion of students, passed from hand to hand by the successive
growths of youth, quasi cur sores, nearly always the same: so
that, as we have just indicated, any person who had listened
to Courfeyrac in 1828, would have thought he was hearing
Tholomyes in 1817. Courfeyrac only was a brave fellow.
Beneath the apparent similarities of the exterior mind, there
was great dissimilarity between Tholomyes and him. The
latent man which existed in each, was in the first altogether
different from what it was in the second. There was in Tholo-
myes an attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin.

Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac
was the centre. The others gave more light, he gave more
heat; the truth is, that he had all the qualities of a centre,
roundness and radiance.

Bahorel had figured in the bloody tumult of June, 1822, on the
occasion of the burial of young La'lemand.

Bahorel was a creature of good humour and bad company,
brave, a spendthrift, prodigal almost to generosity, talkative
almost to eloquence, bold almost to effrontery ; the best possible
devil's-pie; with fool-hardy waistcoats and scarlet opinions;
a wholesale blusterer, that is to say, liking nothing so well as
a quarrel unless it were an dmeute, and nothing so well as an
4meute unless it were a revolution; always ready to break a
paving-stone, then to tear up a street, then to demolish a govern-
ment, to see the effect of it; a student of the eleventh year.
He had adopted for his motto : never a lawyer, and for his coat
of arms a bedroom table on which you might discern a square
cap. Whenever he passed by the law-school, which rarely
happened, he buttoned up his overcoat, the paletot was not yet

Marius 627

invented, and he took hygenic precautions. He said of the
portal of the school: what a fine old man! and of the dean, M.
Delvincourt: what a monument 1 He saw in his studies subjects
for ditties, and in his professors opportunities for caricatures.
He ate up in doing nothing a considerable allowance, something
like three thousand francs. His parents were peasants, in whom
he had succeeded in inculcating a respect for their son.

He said of them: "They are peasants and not bourgeois;
which explains their intelligence."

Bahorel, a capricious man, was scattered over several cafes;
the others had habits, he had none. He loafed. To err is human.
To loaf is Parisian. At bottom, a penetrating mind and more
of a thinker than he seemed.

He served as a bond between the Friends of the ABC and
some other groups which were without definite shape, but
which were to take form afterwards.

In this conclave of young heads there was one bald member.

The Marquis d'Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke for
having helped him into a cab the day that he emigrated, related
that in 1814, on his return to France, as the king landed at Calais,
a man presented a petition to him.

" What do you want? " said the king.

" Sire, a post-office."

" What is your name ? "

" L'Aigle." [The eagle].

The king scowled, looked at the signature of the petition and
saw the name written thus: LESGLE. This orthography, any-
thing but Bonapartist, pleased the king, and he began to smile.
" Sire," resumed the man with the petition, " my ancestor was
a dog- trainer surnamed Lesgueules [The Chaps]. This surname
has become my name. My name is Lesgueules, by contraction
Lesgle, and by corruption L'Aigle." This made the king finish
his smile. He afterwards gave the man the post-office at
Meaux, either intentionally or inadvertently.

The bald member of the club was son of this Lesgle, or Legle,
and signed his name Legle (de Meaux). His comrades, for the
sake of brevity, called him Bossuet.

Bossuet was a cheery fellow who was unlucky. His specialty
was to succeed in nothing. On the other hand, he laughed at
everything. At twenty-five he was bald. His father had died
owning a house and some land; but he, the son, had found
nothing more urgent than to lose this house and land in a bad
speculation. He had nothing left. He had considerable know-

628 Les Miserables

ledge and wit, but he always miscarried. Everything failed him,
everything deceived him; whatever he built up fell upon him.
If he split wood, he cut his finger. If he had a mistress, he very
soon discovered that he had also a friend. Every moment some
misfortune happened to him; hence his jovial ty. He said;
/ live under the roof of the falling tiles. Rarely astonished, since
he was always expecting some accident, he took ill luck with
serenity and smiled at the vexations of destiny like one who
hears a jest. He was poor, but his fund of good-humour was
inexhaustible. He soon reached his last sou, never his last
burst of laughter. When met by adversity, he saluted that
acquaintance cordially, he patted catastrophes on the back;
he was so familiar with fatality as to call it by its nick-name.
" Good morning, old Genius," he would say.

These persecutions of fortune had made him inventive. He
was full of resources. He had no money, but he found means,
when it seemed good to him, to go to " reckless expenses."
One night, he even spent a hundred francs on a supper with a
quean, which inspired him in the midst of the orgy with this
memorable saying : " Daughter of five Louis, pull off my
boots."

Bossuet was slowly making his way towards the legal pro-
fession ; he was doing his law, in the manner of Bahorel. Bossuet
had never much domicile, sometimes none at all. He lodged
sometimes with one, sometimes with another, oftenest with
Joly. Joly was studying medicine. He was two years younger
than Bossuet.

Joly was a young Malade Imaginaire. What he had learned
in medicine was rather to be a patient than a physician. At
twenty-three, he thought himself a valetudinarian, and passed
his time in looking at his tongue in a mirror. Ke declared that
man is a magnet, like the needle, and in his room he placed his
bed with the head to the south and the foot to the north, so
that at night the circulation of the blood should not be interfered
with by the grand magnetic current of the globe. In stormy
weather, he felt his pluse. Nevertheless, the gayest of all. All
these incoherences, young, notional, sickly, joyous, got along
very well together, and the result was an eccentric and agreeable
person whom his comrades, prodigal of consonants, called Jolllly.
" You can fly upon four L's " \ailes, wings] said Jean Prouvaire.

Joly had the habit of rubbing his nose with the end of his cane,
which is an indication of a sagacious mind.

All these young men, diverse as they were, and of whom, as a

Marius 629

whole, we ought only to speak seriously, had the same religion:
Progress.

All were legitimate sons of the French Revolution. The
lightest became solemn when pronouncing this date : '89. Their
fathers according to the flesh, were, or had been Feuillants,
Royalists, Doctrinaires; it mattered little; this hurly-burly
which antedated them, had nothing to do with them ; they were
young ; the pure blood of principles flowed in their veins. They
attached themselves without an intermediate shade to incor-
ruptible right and to absolute duty.

Affiliated and initiated, they secretly sketched out their ideas.

Among all these passionate hearts and all these undoubting
minds there was one sceptic. How did he happen to be there ?
from juxtaposition. The name of this sceptic was Grantaire,,
and he usually signed with this rebus: R [grand R, great R].
Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe anything.
He was, moreover, one of the students who had learned most
during their course in Paris; he knew that the best coffee was
at the Cafe Lemblin, and the best billiard table at the Cafe
Voltaire; that you could find good rolls and good girls at the
hermitage on the Boulevard du Maine, broiled chickens at Mother
Saguet's, excellent chowders at the Barriere de la Cunette, and a
peculiar light white wine at the Barriere du Combat. He knew
the good places for everything; furthermore, boxing, tennis,
a few dances, and he was a profound cudgel-player. A great
drinker to boot. He was frightfully ugly; the prettiest shoe-
binder of that period, Irma Boissy, revolting at his ugli-
ness, had uttered this sentence: "Grantaire is impossible"
but Grantaire's self-conceit was not disconcerted. He looked
tenderly and fixedly upon every woman, appearing to say of
them all: if I only would; and trying to make his comrades
believe that he was in general demand.

All these words: rights of the people, rights of man, social
contract, French Revolution, republic, democracy, humanity,
civilisation, religion, progress, were, to Grantaire, very nearly
meaningless. He smiled at them. Scepticism, that canes of the
intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind. He lived in
irony, This was his axiom : There is only one certainty, my full
glass. He ridiculed all devotion, under all circumstances, in the
brother as well as the father, in Robespierre the younger as well
as Loizerolles. "They were very forward to be dead, he
exclaimed. He said of the cross: " There is a gibbet which has
made a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, and often

630

Les Miserables

drunk, he displeased these young thinkers by singing inces-
santly: " I loves the girls and I loves good wine." Air: Vive
Henri IV, :;.;

Still, this sceptic had a fanaticism. This fanaticism was
neither an idea, nor a dogma, nor an art, nor a science ; it was
a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated
Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical doubter ally himself in
this phalanx of absolute minds ? To the most absolute. In what
way did Enjolras subjugate him ? By ideas? No. By character.
A phenomenon often seen. A sceptic adhering to a believer;
that is as simple as the law of the complementary colours. What
we lack attracts us. Nobody loves the light like the blind man.
The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad is always looking
up at the sky; why? To see the bird fly. Grantaire, in whom
doubt was creeping, loved to see faith soaring in Enjolras,
He had need of Enjolras, Without understanding it himself
clearly, and without trying to explain it, that chaste, healthy,
firm, direct, hard, candid nature charmed him. He admired,
by instinct, his opposite. His soft, wavering, disjointed, dis-
eased, deformed ideas, attached themselves to Enjolras as to
a backbone. His moral spine leaned upon that firmness.
Grantaire, by the side of Enjolras, became somebody again.
He was himself, moreover, composed of two apparently incom-
patible elements. He was ironical and cordial. His indifference
was loving. His mind dispensed with belief, yet his heart could
not dispense with friendship. A thorough contradiction; for
an affection is a conviction. His nature was so. There are men
who seem born to be the opposite, the reverse, the counterpart.
They are Pollux, Patroclus, Nisus, Eudamidas, Hephaestion,
Pechme" ja. They live only upon condition of leaning on another ;
their names are continuations, and are only written preceded
by the conjunction and ; their existence is not their own; it is
the other side of a destiny which is not theirs. Grantaire was
one of these men. He was the reverse of Enjolras.

We might almost say that affinities commence with the letters
of the alphabet. In the series, O and P are inseparable. You
can, as you choose, pronounce 0 and P, or Orestes and Pylades.

Grantaire, a true satellite of Enjolras, lived in this circle of
young people; he dwelt in it; he took pleasure only in it;
he followed them everywhere. His delight was to see these
forms coming and going in the fumes of the wine. He was
tolerated for his good-humour.

Enjolras, being a believer, disdained this sceptic, and being

Marius 63 1

sober, scorned this drunkard. He granted him a little haughty
pity. Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always rudely
treated by Enjolras, harshly repelled, rejected, yet returning, he
said of Enjolras: " What a fine statue 1 "

FUNERAL ORATION UPON BLONDEAU, BY BOSSUET

ON a certain afternoon, which had, as we shall see, some coin-
cidence with events before related, Laigle de Meaux was leaning
lazily back against the doorway of the Cal6 Musain. He had
the appearance of a caryatid in vacation; he was supporting
nothing but his reverie. He was looking at the Place Saint
Michel. Leaning back is a way of lying down standing which
is not disliked by dreamers. Laigle de Meaux was thinking,
without melancholy, of a little mishap which had befallen
him the day before at the law school, and which modified his
personal plans for the future — plans which were, moreover,
rather indefinite.

Reverie does not hinder a cabriolet from going by, nor the
dreamer from noticing the cabriolet. Laigle de Meaux, whose
eyes were wandering in a sort of general stroll, perceived, through
all his somnambulism, a two-wheeled vehicle turning into the
square, which was moving at a walk, as if undecided. What
did this cabriolet want ? why was it moving at a walk ? Laigle
looked at it. There was inside, beside the driver, a young
man, and before the young man, a large carpet-bag. The bag
exhibited to the passers this name, written in big black letters
upon a card sewed to the cloth: MARIUS PONTMERCY.

This name changed Laigle's attitude. He straightened up
and addressed this apostrophe to the young man in the cab-
riolet:

" Monsieur Marius Pontmercy? "

The cabriolet, thus called upon, stopped.

The young man, who also seemed to be profoundly musing,
raised his eyes.

"Well? "said he.

" You are Monsieur Maruis Pontmercy ? "

" Certainly."

" I was looking for you," said Laigle de Meaux.

"How is that?" inquired Marius; for he it was, in fact;

632

Les Miserables

he had just left his grandfather's, and he had before him a
face which he saw for the first time. " I do not know you."

" Nor I either. I do not know you," answered Laigle.

Marius thought he had met a buffoon, and that this was the
beginning of a mystification in the middle of the street. He was
not in a pleasant humour just at that moment. He knit his
brows; Laigle de Meaux, imperturbable, continued:

' You were not at school yesterday."
' It is possible."

' It is certain."

' You are a student? " inquired Marius.

' Yes, Monsieur. Like you. The day before yesterday I
happened to go into the school. You know, one sometimes
has such notions. The professor was about to call the roll.
You know that they are very ridiculous just at that time. If
you miss the third call, they erase your name. Sixty francs gone.

Marius began to listen. Laigle continued :

" It was Blondeau who was calling the roll. You know
Blondeau; he has a very sharp and very malicious nose, and>
delights in smelling out the absent. He slily commenced with
the letter P. I was not listening, not being concerned in that
letter. The roll went on well, no erasure, the universe was
present, Blondeau was sad. I said to myself, Blondeau, my
love, you won't do the slightest execution to-day. Suddenly,
Blondeau calls Marius Pontmercy ; nobody answers. Blondeau,
full of hope, repeats louder: Marius Pontmercy 1 And he seizes
his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels. I said to myself rapidly:
Here is a brave fellow who is going to be erased. Attention.
This is a real live fellow who is not punctual. He is not a good
boy. He is not a book-worm, a student who studies, a white-
billed pedant, strong on science, letters, theology, and wisdom,
one of those numskulls drawn out with four pins ; a pin for each
faculty. He is an honourable idler who loafs, who likes to rusti-
cate, who cultivates the grisette, who pays his court to beauty,
who is perhaps, at this very moment, with my mistress. Let us
save him. Death to Blondeau! At that moment Blondeau
dipped his pen, black with erasures, into the ink, cast his tawny
eye over the room, and repeated for the third time: Marius
Pontmercy I I answered : Present I In that way you were not
erased."

" Monsieur. " said Marius.

" And I was," added Laigle de Meaux.

" I do not understand you," said Marius.

Marius 633

Laigle resumed :

" Nothing more simple. I was near the chair to answer, and
near the door to escape. The professor was looking at me with
a certain fixedness. Suddenly, Blondeau, who must be the
malignant nose of which Boileau speaks, leaps to the letter L.
L is my letter; I am of Meaux, and my name is Lesgle."

" L'Aigle! " interrupted Marius, " what a fine name."

Monsieur, the Blondeau re-echoes this fine name and cries:
' Laigle /' I answer: Present! Then Blondeau looks at me
with the gentleness of a tiger, smiles, and says: If you are
Pontmercy, you are not Laigle. A phrase which is uncom-
plimentary to you, but which brought me only to grief. So
saying, he erases me.

Marius exclaimed :

" Monsieur, I am mortified "

" First of all," interrupted Laigle, " I beg leave to embalm
Blondeau in a few words of feeling eulogy. I suppose him dead.
There wouldn't be much to change in his thinness, his paleness,
his coldness, his stiffness, and his odour. And I say : Erudimini
qui judicatis ierram. Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose,
Blondeau Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplines, the
Molossus of his orders, the angel of the roll, who was straight,
square, exact, rigid, honest, and hideous. God has erased him
as he erased me."

Marius resumed :

" I am very sorry "

" Young man," said Laigle of Meaux, " let this be a lesson to
you. In future, be punctual."

" I really must give a thousand excuses."

" Never expose yourself again to having your neighbour
erased."

" I am very sorry."

Laigle burst out laughing.

" And I, in raptures; I was on the brink of being a lawyer.
This rupture saves me. I renounce the triumphs of the bar.
I shall not defend the widow, and I shall not attack the orphan.
No more toga, no more probation. Here is my erasure obtained.
It is to you that I owe it, Monsieur Pontmercy. I intend to
pay you a solemn visit of thanks. Where do you live ? "

" In this cabriolet," said Marius.

" A sign of opulence," replied Laigle calmly. " I congratulate
you. You have here rent of nine thousand francs a year."

Just then Courfeyrac came out of the caf6.

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Les Miserables

Marius smiled sadly.

" I have been paying this rent for two hours, and I hope to
get out of it; but, it is the usual story, I do not know where
to go."

" Monsieur," said Courfeyrac, " come home with me."

" I should have priority," observed Laigle, " but I have no
home."

" Silence, Bossuet/' replied Courfeyrac.

" Bossuet," said Marius, " but I thought you called yourself
Laigle."

" Of Meaux," answered Laigle; " metaphorically, Bossuet."

Courfeyrac got into the cabriolet.

" Driver," said he, " Hotel de la Porte Saint Jacques."

And that same evening, Marius was installed in a room at the
Hotel de la Porte Saint Jacques, side by side with Courfeyrac.

Ill

THE ASTONISHMENTS OF MARIUS

IN a few days, Marius was the friend of Courfeyrac. Youth is
the season of prompt weldings and rapid cicatrisations. Marius,
in Courfeyrac's presence, breathed freely, a new thing for him.
Courfeyrac asked him no questions. He did not even think of
it. At that age, the countenance tells all at once. Speech is
useless. There are some young men of whom we might say
their physiognomies are talkative. They look at one another,
they know one another.

One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly put this question
to him.

" By the way, have you any political opinions ? "

" What do you mean ? " said Marius, almost offended at the
question.

"What are you?"

" Bonapartist democrat."

" Grey shade of quiet mouse colour," said Courfeyrac.

The next day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius to the Caf6
Musain. Then he whispered in his ear with a smile: " I must
give you your admission into the revolution." And he took
him into the room of the Friends of the ABC. He presented
him to the other members, saying in an undertone this simple
word which Marius did not understand: " A pupil."

Marius 635

Marius had fallen into a mental wasps' nest. Still, although
silent and serious, he was not the less winged, nor the less armed.

Marius, up to this time solitary and inclined to soliloquy and
privacy by habit and by taste, was a little bewildered at this
flock of young men about him. All these different progressives
attacked him at once, and perplexed him. The tumultuous
sweep and sway of all these minds at liberty and at work set
his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, in the confusion, they went
so far from him that he had some difficulty in finding them again.
He heard talk of philosophy, of literature, of art, of history, of
religion, in a style he had not looked for. He caught glimpses
of strange appearances; and, as he did not bring them into
perspective, he was not sure that it was not a chaos that he saw.
On abandoning his grandfather's opinions for his father's, he had
thought himself settled; he now suspected, with anxiety, and
without daring to confess it to himself, that he was not. The
angle under which he saw all things was beginning to change
anew. A certain oscillation shook the whole horizon of his brain.
A strange internal moving-day. He almost suffered from it.

It seemed that there were to these young men no " sacred
things." Marius heard, upon every subject, a singular language
annoying to his still timid mind.

A theatre poster presented itself, decorated with the title
of a tragedy of the old repertory, called classic: " Down with
tragedy dear to the bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And Marius
heard Combeferre reply.

" You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie love tragedy,
and upon that point we must let the bourgeoisie alone. Tragedy
in a wig has its reason for being, and I am not one of those
who, in the name of .ffischylus, deny it the right of existence.
There are rough drafts in nature; there are, in creation, ready-
made parodies ; a bill which is not a bill, wings which are not
wings, fins which are not fins, claws which are not claws, a
mournful cry which inspires us with the desire to laugh, there
is the duck. Now, since the fowl exists along with the bird,
I do not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of
antique tragedy."

At another time Marius happened to be passing through the
Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau between Enjolras and Courfeyrac.

Courf eyrac took his arm :

" Give attention. This is the Rue Platriere, now called Rue
Jean Jacques Rousseau, on account of a singular household
which lived on it sixty years ago. It consisted of Jean Jacques

636

Les Miserables

and TherSse. From time to time, little creatures were born in
it. The'rese brought them forth. Jean Jacques turned them
forth."

And Enjolras replied with severity:

"Silence before Jean Jacques! I admire that man. He
disowned his children; very well; but he adopted the people."

None of these young men uttered this word: the emperor.
Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all the rest said
Bonaparte. Enjolras pronounced Buonaparte.

Marius became confusedly astonished. Initium sapientice.

THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFE MUSAIN

OF the conversations among these young men which Marius
frequented and in which he sometimes took part, one shocked
him severely.

This was held in the back room of the Caf6 Musain. Nearly
all the Friends of the ABC were together that evening. The
large lamp was ceremoniously lighted. They talked of one
thing and another, without passion and with noise. Save
Enjolras and Marius, who were silent, each one harangued a little
at random. The talk of comrades does sometimes amount to
these harmless tumults. It was a play and a fracas as much
as a conversation. One threw out words which another caught
up. They were talking in each of the four corners.

No woman was admitted into this back room, except Louison,
the dish-washer of the cafe", who passed through it from time
to time to go from the washroom to the " laboratory."

Grantaire, perfectly boozy, was deafening the corner of which
he had taken possession, he was talking sense and nonsense
with all his might; he cried:

" I am thirsty. Mortals, I have a dream : that the tun of
Heidelberg has an attack of apoplexy, and that I am the dozen
leeches which is to be applied to it. I would like a drink. I
desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of somebody
I don't know who. It doesn't last, and it is good for nothing.
You break your neck to live. Life is a stage scene in which there
is little that is practical. Happiness is an old sash painted on
one side. The ecclesiast says: all is vanity; I agree with that
goodman who perhaps never existed. Zero, not wishing to go
entirely naked, has clothed himself in vanity. 0 vanity! the

Marius 637

patching up of everything with big words! a kitchen is a
laboratory, a dancer is a professor, a mountebank is a gymnast,
a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary is a chemist, a hod-carrier
is an architect, a jockey is a sportsman, a wood-louse is a
pterygobranchiate. Vanity has a right side and a wrong side;
the right side is stupid, it is the negro with his beads ; the wrong
side is silly, it is the philosopher with his rags. I weep over
one and I laugh over the other. That which is called honours
and dignities, and even honour and dignity, is generally pinch-
beck. Kings make a plaything of human pride. Caligula
made a horse consul; Charles II. made a sirloin a knight. Now
parade yourselves then between the consul Incitatus and the
baronet Roastbeef. As to the intrinsic value of people, it is
hardly respectable any longer. Listen to the panegyric which
neighbours pass upon each other. White is ferocious upon
white; should the lily speak, how it would fix out the dove?
a bigot gossiping about a devotee is more venomous than the
asp and the blue viper. It is a pity that I am ignorant, for I
would quote you a crowd of things, but I don't know anything.
For instance, I always was bright; when I was a pupil with
Gros, instead of daubing pictures, I spent my time in pilfering
apples. So much for myself; as for the rest of you, you are just
as good as I am. I make fun of your perfections, excellences,
and good qualities. Every good quality runs into a defect;
economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the
prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who says very
pious says slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many
vices in virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.
Which do you admire, the slain or the slayer, Gesar or Brutus?
People generally are for the slayer. Hurrah for Brutus! he
slew. That is virtue. Virtue, if it may be, but folly also. There
are some queer stains on these great men. The Brutus who slew
Csesar was in love with a statue of a little boy. This statue was
by the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also designed that statue
of an amazon called the Beautiful-limbed, Euknemos, which
Nero carried with him on his journeys. This Strongylion left
nothing but two statues which put Brutus and Nero in harmony.
Brutus was in love with one and Nero with the other. All
history is only a long repetition. One century plagiarises
.another. The battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna;
the Toibach of Clovis and the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like as
two drops of blood. I make little account of victory. Nothing
is so stupid as to vanquish; the real glory is to convince. But

638

Les Miserables

try now to prove something ! you are satisfied with succeeding,
what mediocrity! and with conquering, what misery! Alas,
vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys success,
even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. I despise therefore
the human race. Shall we descend from the whole to a part?
Will you have me set about admiring the peoples ? what people,
if you please? Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of old
times, killed Phocion, as if we should say Coligny, and fawned
upon the tyrants to such a degree that Anacephoras said of
Pisistratus : His water attracts the bees. The most considerable
man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas,
who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to put lead on
his shoes so as not to be blown away by the wind. There was
in the grand square of Corinth a statue by the sculptor Silanion,
catalogued by Pliny ; this statue represented Episthates. What
did Episthates do? He invented the trip in wrestling. This
sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass to others. Shall I
admire England ? Shall I admire France ? France ? what for ?
on account of Paris. I have just told you my opinion of Athens.
England? for what? on account of London ? I hate Carthage.
And then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is the capital of
misery. In the single parish of Charing Cross, there are a
hundred deaths a year from starvation. Such is Albion. I
add, as a completion, that I have seen an English girl dance
with a crown of roses and blue spectacles. A groan then for
England. If I do not admire John Bull, shall I admire Brother
Jonathan then? I have little taste for this brother with his
slaves. Take away time is money, and what is left of England ?
take away cotton is king, and what is left of America ? Germany
is the lymph ; Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over
Russia? Voltaire admired her. He admired China also. I
confess that Russia has her beauties, among others a strong
despotism; but I am sorry for the despots. They have very
delicate health. An Alexis decapitated, a Peter stabbed, a
Paul strangled, another Paul trampled down by blows from
the heel of a boot, divers Ivans butchered, several Nicholases
and Basils poisoned, all that indicates that the palace of the
Emperors of Russia is in an alarming condition of insalubrity.
All civilised nations offer to the admiration of the thinker this
circumstance: war; but war, civilised war, exhausts and sums
up every form of banditism, from the brigandage of the Trabu-
caires of the gorges of Mount Jaxa to the marauding of the
Camanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. Pshaw ! will you tell

Marius 639

me Europe is better than Asia for all that? I admit that Asia
is ridiculous ; but I do not quite see what right you have to laugh
at the Grand Lama, you people of the Occident who have incor-
porated into your fashions and your elegancies all the multi-
farious ordures of majesty, from Queen Isabella's dirty chemise
to the chamber-chair of the dauphin. Messieurs humans, I
tell you, not a bit of it ! It is at Brussels that they consume
the most brandy, at Madrid the most chocolate, at Amsterdam
the most gin, at London the most wine, at Constantinople the
most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe; those are all the useful
notions. Paris takes the palm on the whole. In Paris, the rag-
pickers even are Sybarites; Diogenes would have much rather
been a rag-picker in the Place Maubert than a philosopher in the
Piraeus. Learn this also: the wine-shops of the rag-pickers are
called bibines ; the most celebrated are the Saucepan and the
Slaughter-house, Therefore, 0 drinking-shops, eating shops,
tavern signs, bar-rooms, tea parties, meat markets, dance
houses, brothels, rag-pickers' tippling shops, caravanserai of the
caliphs, I swear to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat at Richard's
at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets on which to
roll Cleopatra naked! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! it is you,
Louison. Good morning."

Thus Grantaire, more than drunk, spread himself out in words,
catching up the dishwasher on her way, in his corner of the
Musain back room.

Bossuet, extending his hand, endeavoured to impose silence
upon him, and Grantaire started again still more beautifully:

" Eagle of Meaux, down with your claws. You have no effect
upon me with your gesture of Hippocrates refusing his drugs
to Artaxerxes. I dispense you from quieting me. Moreover,
I am sad. What would you have me tell you ? Man is wicked,
man is deformed; the butterfly has succeeded, man has missed
fire. God failed on this animal. A crowd gives you nothing
but choice of ugliness. The first man you meet will be a wretch.
Femme [woman] rhymes with injamt [infamous]. Yes, I have
the spleen, in addition to melancholy, with nostalgia, besides
hypochondria, and I sneer, and I rage, and I yawn, and I am
tired, and I am knocked in the head, and I am tormented ! Let
God go to the Devil!"

" Silence, capital R ! " broke in Bossuet, who was discussing
a point of law aside, and who was more than half buried in a
string of judicial argot, of which here is the conclusion:

" And as for me, although I am hardly a legist, and at

640 Les Miserablcs

best an amateur attorney, I maintain this: that by the terms
of the common law of Normandy, at St. Michael's, and for every
year, an equivalent must be paid for the benefit of the seigneur,
saving the rights of others, by each and every of them, as well
proprietaries as those seized by inheritance, and this for all terms
of years, leases, freeholds, contracts domainiary and domainial,
of mortgagees and mortgagors "

" Echo, plaintive nymph," muttered Grantaire.

Close beside Grantaire, at a table which was almost silent, a
sheet of paper, an inkstand and a pen between two wine glasses,
announced that a farce was being sketched out. This important
business was carried on in a whisper, and the two heads at work
touched each other.

" We must begin by finding the names. When we have
found the names, we will find a subject."

"That is true. Dictate: I will write."

" Monsieur Dorimon."

" Wealthy? "

" Of course."

" His daughter Celestine."

" tine. What next?"

" Colonel Sainval."

" Sainval is old. I would say Valsin."

Besides these dramatic aspirants, another group, who also
were taking advantage of the confusion to talk privately, were
discussing a duel. An old man, of thirty, was advising a young
one, of eighteen, and explaining to him what sort of an adversary
he had to deal with.

" The devil ! Look out for yourself. He is a beautiful
sword. His play is neat. He comes to the attack, no lost
feints, a pliant wrist, sparkling play, a flash, step exact, and
ripostes mathematical. Zounds! and he is left-handed, too."

In the corner opposite to Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were
playing dominoes and talking of love.

" You are lucky," said Joly; " you have a mistress who is
always laughing."

" That is a fault of hers," answered Bahorel. " Your mistress
does wrong to laugh. It encourages you to deceive her. Seeing
her gay, takes away your remorse; if you see her sad, your
conscience troubles you."

" Ingrate ! A laughing woman is so good a thing ! And you
never quarrel! "

" That is a part of the treaty we have made. When we made

Marius 641

our little Holy Alliance, we assigned to each our own boundary
which we should never pass. What is situated towards the north
belongs to Vaud, towards the south to Gex. Hence our peace."

" Peace is happiness digesting."

" And you, Jolllly, how do you come on in your falling out
with Mamselle you know who I mean? "

" She sulks with cruel patience."

" So you are a lover pining away."

"Alas!"

" If I were in your place, I would get rid of her."

" That is easily said."

" And done. Isn't it Musichetta that she calls herself? "

" Yes. Ah ! my poor Bahorel, she is a superb girl, very
literary, with small feet, small hands, dresses well, white, plump,
and has eyes like a fortune-teller. I am crazy about her."

" My dear fellow, then you must please her, be fashionable,
and show off your legs. Buy a pair of doeskin pantaloons at
Staub's. They yield."

" At what rate? " cried Grantaire.

The third corner had fallen a prey to a poetical discussion.
The Pagan mythology was wrestling with the Christian mytho-
logy. The subject was Olympus, for which Jean Prouvaire, by
very romanticism, took sides. Jean Prouvaire was timid only
in repose. Once excited, he burst forth, a sort of gaiety char-
acterised his enthusiasm, and he was at once laughing and
lyric.

" Let us not insult the gods," said he. " The gods, perhaps,
have not left us. Jupiter does not strike me as dead. The gods
are dreams, say you. Well, even in nature, such as it now is,
we find all the grand old pagan myths again. Such a mountain,
with the profile of a citadel, like the Vignemarle, for instance,
is still to me the head-dress of Cybele; it is not proved that
Pan does not come at night to blow into the hollow trunks of
the willows, while he stops the holes with his fingers one after
another; and I have always believed that lo had something
to do with the cascade of Pissevache."

In the last corner, politics was the subject. They were
abusing the Charter 3f Louis XVIII. Combeferre defended it
mildly, Courfeyrac was energetically battering it to a breach.
There was on the table an unlucky copy of the famous Touquet
Charter. Courfeyrac caught it up and shook it, mingling with
his arguments the rustling of that sheet of paper.

"First, I desire no kings; were it only from the economical
i x

642

Les Miserables

point of view, I desire none; a king is a parasite. We do not
have kings gratis. Listen to this : cost of kings. At the death
of Francis I., the public debt of France was thirty thousand livres
de rente; at the death of Louis XIV., it was two thousand six
hundred millions at twenty-eight livres the mark, which was
equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarest, to four thousand
five hundred millions, and which is equivalent to-day to twelve
thousand millions. Secondly, no offence to Combeferre, a
charter granted is a vicious expedient of civilisation. To avoid
the transition, to smoothe the passage, to deaden the shock, to
make the nation pass insensibly from monarchy to democracy
by the practice of constitutional fictions, these are all detestable
arguments! No! no! never give the people a false light.
Principles wither and grow pale in your constitutional cave.
No half measures, no compromises, no grant from the king,
to the people. In all these grants, there is an Article 14. Along
with the hand which gives 'there is the claw which takes back.
I wholly refuse your charter. A charter is a mask; the lie is
beneath it. A people who accept a charter, abdicate. Right is
right only when entire. No ! no charter ! "

It was winter; two logs were crackling in the fireplace. It
was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crushed the
poor Touquet Charter in his hand, and threw it into the fire.
The paper blazed up. Combeferre looked philosophically upon
the burning of Louis XVIII. 's masterpiece, and contented
himself with saying :

" The charter metamorphosed in flames."

And the sarcasms, the sallies, the jests, that French thing
which is called high spirits, that English thing which is called
humour, good taste and bad taste, good reasons and bad reasons,
all the commingled follies of dialogue, rising at once and crossing
from all points of the room, made above their heads a sort of
joyou* bombardment.

Marius 643

ENLARGEMENT OF THE HORIZON

•

HE jostlings of young minds against each other have this
wonderful attribute, that one can never foresee the spark, nor
predict the flash. What may spring up in a moment ? Nobody
knows. A burst of laughter follows a scene of tenderness. In
a moment of buffoonery, the serious makes its entrance. Im-
pulses depend upon a chance word. The spirit of each is sove-
reign. A jest suffices to open the door to the unlocked for.
Theirs are conferences with sharp turns, where the perspective
suddenly changes. Chance is the director of these conversations.

A stern thought, oddly brought out of a clatter of words, sud-
denly crossed the tumult of speech in which Grantaire, Bahorel,
Prouvaire, Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly
fencing.

How does a phrase make its way into a dialogue? whence
comes it that it makes its mark all at once upon the attention
of those who hear it? We have just said, nobody knows. In
the midst of the uproar Bossuet suddenly ended some apostrophe
to Combeferre with this date:

" The i8th of June, 1815: Waterloo."

At this name, Waterloo, Marius, who was leaning on a table
with a glass of water by him, took his hand away from under
his chin, and began to look earnestly about the room.

" Pardieu," exclaimed Courfeyrac (Parbleu, at that period,
was falling into disuse), " that number 18 is strange, and striking
to me. It is the fatal number of Bonaparte. Put Louis before
and Brumaire behind, you have the whole destiny of the man,
with this expressive peculiarity, that the beginning is hard
pressed by the end."

Enjolras, till now dumb, broke the silence, and thus addressed
Courfeyrac:

" You mean the crime by the expiation."

This word, crime, exceeded the limits of the endurance of
Marius, already much excited by the abrupt evocation of
Waterloo.

He rose, he walked slowly towards the map of France spread
out upon the wall, at the bottom of which could be seen an
island in a separate compartment; he laid his finger upon this
compartment and said :

" Corsica. A little island which has made France truly great."

644 J'es Miserablcs

This was a breath of freezing air. All was silent. They felt
that now something was to be said.

Bahorel, replying to Bossuet, was just assuming a pet attitude.
He gave it up to listen.

Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed upon anybody, and
seemed staring into space, answered without looking at Marius:

" France needs no Corsica to be great. France is great because
she is France. Quia nominor leo."

Marius felt no desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras,
and his voice rang with a vibration which came from the quiver-
ing of his nerves:

"God forbid that 1 should lessen France! but it is not
lessening her to join her with Napoleon. Come, let us talk
then. I am a new-comer among you, but I confess that you
astound me. Where are we ? who are we ? who are you ? who
am I? Let us explain ourselves about the emperor. I hear
you say Buonaparte, accenting the « like the royalists. I can
tell you that my grandfather does better yet ; he says Buona-
parte*. I thought you were young men. Where is your en-
thusiasm then? and what do you do with it? whom do you
admire, if you do not admire the emperor ? and what more must
you have ? If you do not Like that great man, what great men
would you have? He was everything. He was complete.
He had in his brain the cube of human faculties. He made
codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his conversation
joined the lightning of Pascal to the thunderbolt of Tacitus,
he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins are Iliads, he com-
bined the figures of Newton with the metaphors of Mahomet,
he left behind him in the Orient words as grand as the pyramids,
at Tilsit he taught majesty to emperors, at the Academy of
Sciences he replied to Laplace, in the Council of State he held
his ground with Merlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of those
and to the trickery of these, he was legal with the attorneys
and sidereal with the astronomers; like Cromwell blowing out
one candle when two were lighted, he went to the Temple to
cheapen a curtain tassel; he saw everything; he knew every-
thing; which did not prevent him from laughing a goodman's
laugh by the cradle of his little child ; and all at once, startled
Europe listened, armies set themselves in march, parks of artillery
rolled along, bridges of boats stretched over the rivers, clouds of
cavalry galloped in the hurricane, cries, trumpets, a trembling of
thrones everywhere, the frontiers of the kingdoms oscillated upon
the map, the sound of a superhuman blade was heard leaping

Marius 645

from its sheath, men saw him, him, standing erect in the horizon
with a flame in his hands and a resplendence in his eyes, unfolding
in the thunder his two wings, the Grand Army and the* Old
Guard, and he was the archangel of war ! "

All were silent, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence always
has something of the effect of an acquiescence or of a sort of
pushing to the wall. Marius, almost without taking breath,
continued with a burst of enthusiasm :

" Be just, my friends! to be the empire of such an emperor,
what a splendid destiny for a people, when that people is France,
and when it adds its genius to the genius of such a manl To
appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have every
capital for a magazine, to take his grenadiers and make kings of
them, to decree the downfall of dynasties, to transfigure Europe
at a double quickstep, so that men feel, when you threaten, that
you lay your hand on the hilt of the sword of God, to follow,
in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, and Charlemagne, to be the
people of one who mingles with your every dawn the glorious
announcement of a battle gained, to be wakened in the morning
by the cannon of the Invalides, to hurl into the vault of day
mighty words which blaze for ever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz,
Jena, WagramI to call forth at every moment constellations
of victories in the zenith of the centuries, to make the French
Empire, the successor of the Roman Empire, to be the grand
nation and to bring forth the grand army, to send your legions
flying over the whole earth as a mountain sends its eagles upon
all sides, to vanquish, to rule, to thunderstrike, to be in Europe
a kind of gilded people through much glory, to sound through
history a Titan trumpet call, to conquer the world twice, by
conquest and by resplendence, this is sublime, and what can
be more grand ? "

" To be free," said Combeferre.

Marius in his turn bowed his head: these cold and simple
words had pierced his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he
felt it vanish within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre
was there no longer. Satisfied probably with his reply to the
apotheosis, he had gone out, and all, except Enjolras, had
followed him. The room was empty. Enjolras, remaining
alone with Marius, wag looking at him seriously. Marius,
meanwhile, having rallied his ideas a little, did not consider him-
self beaten ; there was still something left of the ebullition within
him, which doubtless was about to find expression in syllogisms
arrayed against Enjolras, when suddenly they heard somebody

646 Les Miserables

singing as he was going downstairs. It was Combeferre, and
what he was singing is this :

Si Cesar m'avait donn6

La gloire et la guerre,
Et qu'il me fallut quitter

L" amour de ma mere,
Je dirais au grand Cesar:
Reprends ton sceptre et ton char,

J'aime mieux ma mere, d gue!

J'aime mieux ma mere.1

The wild and tender accent with which Combeferre sang, gave
to this stanza a strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtful and with
his eyes directed to the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically:
" my mother — "

At this moment, he felt Enjolras' hand on his shoulder.

" Citizen/' said Enjolras to him, " my mother is the republic."

RES ANGUSTA

THAT evening left Marius in a profound agitation, with a sorrow-
ful darkness in his soul. He was experiencing what perhaps
the earth experiences at the moment when it is furrowed with
the share that the grains of wheat may be sown; it feels the
wound alone ; the thrill of the germ and the joy of the fruit do
not come until later.

Marius was gloomy. He had but just attained a faith ; could
he so soon reject it? He decided within himself that he could
not. He declared to himself that he would not doubt, and he
began to doubt in spite of himself. To be between two religions,
one which you have not yet abandoned, and another which you
have not yet adopted, is insupportable ; and twilight is pleasant
only to bat-like souls. Marius was an open eye, and he needed
the true light. To him the dusk of doubt was harmful. What-
ever might be his desire to stop where he was, and to hold fast
there, he was irresistibly compelled to continue, to advance,
to examine, to think, to go forward. Where was that going
to lead him ? he feared, after having taken so many steps which

1 If Caesar had given me

Glory and war,
And if I must abandon

The love of my mother,
I would say to great Caesar:
Take thy sceptre and car,

I prefer my mother, ah m*J

1 prefer my mother.

Marius 647

had brought him nearer to his father, to take now any steps
wb>di should separate them. His dejection increased with
every reflection which occurred to him. Steep cliffs rose about
him. He was on good terms neither with his grandfather nor
with his friends; rash towards the former, backward towards
the others; and he felt doubly isolated, from old age, and also
from youth. He went no more to the Cafe Musain.

In this trouble in which his mind was plunged he scarcely gave
a thought to certain serious phases of existence. The realities of
life do not allow themselves to be forgotten. They came and
jogged his memory sharply.

One morning, the keeper of the house entered Marius' room,
and said to him :

" Monsieur Courfeyrac is responsible for you."

" Yes."

" But I am in need of money."

" Ask Courfeyrac to come and speak with me," said Marius.

Courfeyrac came; the host left them. Marius related to him
what he had not thought of telling him before, that he was, so
to speak, alone in the world, without any relatives.

" What are you going to become ? " said Courfeyrac.

" I have no idea/' answered Marius.

" What are you going to do? "

" I have no idea."

" Have you any money? "

" Fifteen francs."

" Do you wish me to lend you some ? "

" Never."

" Have you any clothes ? "

" What you see."

" Have you any jewellery ? "

" A watch."

"A silver one?"

" Gold, here it is."

" I know a dealer in clothing who will take your overcoat
and one pair of trousers."

" That is good."

" You will then have but one pair of trousers, one waistcoat,
one hat, and one coat."

" And my boots."

"What? you will not go barefoot ? what opulence !"

" That will be enough."

" I know a watchmaker who will buy your watch."

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648 Les Miserables

' That is good."

' No, it is not good. What will you do afterwards? "
' What I must. Anything honourable at least."
' Do you know English ? "
' No."

' Do you know German ? "
' No."

' That is bad."
'Why?"

' Because a friend of mine, a bookseller, is making a sort of
encyclopaedia, for which you could have translated German or
English articles. It is poor pay, but it gives a living."
" I will learn English and German."
" And in the meantime? "

" In the meantime I will eat my coats and my watch."
The clothes dealer was sent for. He gave twenty francs for
the clothes. They went to the watchmaker. He gave forty-
five francs for the watch.

" That is not bad," said Marius to Courfeyrac, on returning
to the house ; " with my fifteen francs, this makes eighty francs."
" The hotel bill? " observed Courfeyrac.
" Ah ! I forgot," said Marius.

The host presented his bill, which must be paid on the spot.
It amounted to seventy francs.

" I have ten francs left," said Marius.

" The devil," said Courfeyrac, " you will have five francs to
eat while you are learning English, and five francs while you are
learning German. That will be swallowing a language very
rapidly or a hundred-sous piece very slowly."

Meanwhile Aunt Gillenormand, who was really a kind person
on sad occasions, had finally unearthed Marius' lodgings.

One morning when Marius came home from the school, he found
a letter from his aunt, and the sixty pistoles, that is to say, six
hundred francs in gold, in a sealed box.

Marius sent the thirty louis back to his aunt, with a respectful
letter, in which he told her that he had the means of living,
and that he could provide henceforth for all his necessities.
At that time he had three francs left.

The aunt did not inform the grandfather of this refusal, lest
she should exasperate him. Indeed, had he not said : " Let
nobody ever speak to me of this blood-drinker? "

Marius left the Porte Sainte Jacques Hotel, unwilling to
contract debt.

BOOK FIFTH
THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE

MARIUS NEEDY

LIFE became stern to Marius. To eat his coats and his watch
was nothing. He chewed that inexpressible thing which is
called the cud o] bitterness. A horrible thing, which includes
days without bread, nights without sleep, evenings without a
candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without labour, a future
without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat which makes
young girls laugh, the door found shut against you at night
because you have not paid your rent, the insolence of the porter
and the landlord, the jibes of neighbours, humiliations, self-
respect outraged, any drudgery acceptable, disgust, bitterness,
prostration — Marius learned how one swallows down all these
things, and how they are often the only things that one has to
swallow*. At that period of existence, when man has need of
pride, because he has need of love, he felt that he was mocked
at because he was badly dressed, and ridiculed because he was
poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with an imperial
pride, he more than once dropped his eyes upon his worn-out
boots, and experienced the undeserved shame and the poignant
blushes of misery. Wonderful and terrible trial, from which
the feeble come out infamous, from which the strong come out
sublime. Crucible into which destiny casts a man whenever
she desires a scoundrel or a demi-god.

For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles
of life. There is a determined though unseen bravery, which
defends itself foot to foot in the darkness against the fatal
invasions of necessity and of baseness. Noble and mysterious
triumphs which no eye sees, which no renown rewards, which
no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation,
abandonment, poverty, are battle-fields which have their
heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious
heroes.

649

650 Les Miserables

Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost
always a step-mother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives
birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-
respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls.

There was a period in Marius' life when he swept his own
hall, when he bought a pennyworth of Brie cheese at the market-
woman's, when he waited for nightfall to make his way to the
baker's and buy a loaf of bread, which he carried furtively to
his garret, as if he had stolen it. Sometimes there was seen to
glide into the corner meat-market, in the midst of the jeering
cooks who elbowed him, an awkward young man, with books
under his arm, who had a timid and frightened appearance,
and who, as he entered, took off his hat from his forehead, which
was dripping with sweat, made a low bow to the astonished
butcher, another bow to the butcher's boy, asked for a mutton
cutlet, paid six or seven sous for it, wrapped it up in paper, put
it under his arm between two books, and went away. It was
Marius. On this cutlet, which he cooked himself, he lived three
days.

The first day he ate the meat; the second day he ate the fat;
the third day he gnawed the bone. On several occasions, Aunt
Gillenormand made overtures, and sent him the sixty pistoles.
Marius always sent them back, saying that he had no need of
anything.

He was still in mourning for his father, when the revolution
which we have described was accomplished in his ideas. Since
then, he had never left off black clothes. His clothes left him,
however. A day came, at last, when he had no coat. His
trousers were going also. What was to be done ? Courfeyrac,
for whom he also had done some good turns, gave him an old
coat. For thirty sous, Marius had it turned by some porter
or other, and it was a new coat. But this coat was green. Then
Marius did not go out till after nightfall. That made his coat
black. Desiring always to be in mourning, he clothed himself
with night.

Through all this, he procured admission to the bar. He was
reputed to occupy Courfeyrac's room, which was decent, and
where a certain number of law books, supported and rilled out
by some odd volumes of novels, made up the library required
by the rules.

When Marius had become a lawyer, he informed his grand-
father of it, in a letter which was frigid, but full of submission
and respect. M. Gillenormand took the letter with trembling

Marius 651

lands, read it, and threw it, torn in pieces, into the basket.
Two or three days afterwards, Mademoiselle Gillenormand over-
heard her father, who was alone in his room, talking aloud.
This was always the case when he was much excited. She
listened: the old man said: " If you were not a fool, you would
know that a man cannot be a baron and a lawyer at the same
time,"

MARIUS POOR

IT is with misery as with everything else. It gradually becomes
endurable. It ends by taking form and becoming fixed. You
vegetate, that is to say you develop in some wretched fashion,
but sufficient for existence. This is the way in which Marius
Pontmercy's life was arranged.

He had got out of the narrowest place; the pass widened a
little before him. By dint of hard work, courage, perseverance,
and will, he had succeeded in earning by his labour about seven
hundred francs a year. He had learned German and English;
thanks to Courfeyrac, who introduced him to his friend the
publisher, Marius filled, in the literary department of the book-
house, the useful role of utility. He made out prospectuses,
translated from the journals, annotated republications, compiled
biographies, etc., net result, year in and year out, seven hundred
francs. He lived on this. How? Not badly. We are going
to tell.

Marius occupied, at an annual rent of thirty francs, a wretched
little room in the Gorbeau tenement, with no fireplace, called
a cabinet, in which there was no more furniture than was in-
dispensable. The furniture was his own. He gave three francs
a month to the old woman who had charge of the building, for
sweeping his room and bringing him every morning a little
warm water, a fresh egg, and a penny loaf of bread. On this
loaf and this egg he breakfasted. His breakfast varied from
two or four sous, as eggs were cheap or clear. At six o'clock
in the evening he went down into the Rue Saint Jacques, to
dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's the print dealer's, at the
corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. He took
a sixpenny plate of meat, a threepenny half-plate of vegetables,
and a threepenny desert. For three sous, as much bread as he
liked. As for wine, he drank water. On paying at the counter,
where Madame Rousseau., was seated majestically, still plump

652

Les Miserables

and fresh also in those days, he gave a sou to the waiter, and
Madame Rousseau gave him a smile. Then he went away.
For sixteen sous, he had a smile and a dinner.

This Rosseau restaurant, where so few bottles and so many
pitchers were emptied, was rather an appeasant than a restorant.
It is not kept now. The master had a fine title; he was called
Rousseau the Aquatic.

Thus, breakfast four sous, dinner sixteen sous, his food cost
him twenty sous a day, which was three hundred and sixty-five
francs a year. Add the thirty francs for his lodging, and the
thirty-six francs to the old woman, and a few other trifling
expenses, and for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius was
fed, lodged, and waited upon. His clothes cost him a hundred
francs, his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs ; the whole
did not exceed six hundred and fifty francs. This left him fifty
francs. He was rich. He occasionally lent ten francs to a friend.
Courfeyrac borrowed sixty francs of him once. As for fire,
having no fireplace, Marius had " simplified " it.

Marius always had two complete suits, one old " for every
day," the other quite new, for special occasions. Both were
black. He had but three shirts, one he had on, another in the
drawer, the third at the washerwoman's. He renewed them as
they wore out. They were usually ragged, so he buttoned his
coat to his chin.

For Marius to arrive at this flourishing condition had required
years. Hard years, and difficult ones; those to get through,
these to climb. Marius had never given up for a single day.
He had undergone everything, in the shape of privation; he
had done everything, except get into debt. He gave himself
this credit, that he had never owed a sou to anybody. For him
a debt was the beginning of slavery. He felt even that a creditor
is worse than a master; for a master owns only your person, a
creditor owns your dignity and can belabour that. Rather than
borrow, he did not eat. He had had many days of fasting.
Feeling that all extremes meet, and that if we do not take care,
abasement of fortune may lead to baseness of soul, he watched
jealously over his pride. Such a habit or such a carriage as,
in any other condition, would have appeared deferential, seemed
humiliating, and he braced himself against it. He risked
nothing, not wishing to take a backward step. He had a kind
of stern blush upon his face. He was timid even to rudeness.

In all his trials he felt encouraged and sometimes even upborne
by a secret force within. The soul helps the body, and at certain

Marius 653

ents uplifts it. It is the only bird which sustains its
cage.

By the side of his father's name, another name was engraven
upon Marius' heart, the name of The'nardier. Marius, in his
enthusiastic yet serious nature, surrounded with a sort of halo
the man to whom, as he thought, he owed his father's life, that
brave sergeant who had saved the colonel in the midst of the
balls and bullets of Waterloo. He never separated the memory
of this man from the memory of his father, and he associated
them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship with two
steps, the high altar for the colonel, the low one for Thenardier.
The idea of the misfortune into which he knew that Thenardier
had fallen and been engulfed, intensified his feeling of gratitude.
Marius had learned at Montfermeil of the ruin and bankruptcy
of the unlucky innkeeper. Since then, he had made untold effort
to get track of him, and to endeavour to find him, in that dark
abyss of misery in which Thenardier had disappeared. Marius
had beaten the whole country; he had been to Chelles, to Bondy,
to Gournay, to Nogent, to Lagny. For three years he had been
devoted to this, spending in these explorations what little money
he could spare. Nobody could give him any news of Thenardier ;
it was thought he had gone abroad. His creditors had sought
for him, also, with less love than Marius, but with as much
zeal, and had not been able to put their hands on him. Marius
blamed and almost hated himself for not succeeding in his
researches. This was the only debt which the colonel had left
him, and Marius made it a point of honour to pay it. " What,"
thought he, " when my father lay dying on the field of battle,
Thenardier could find him through the smoke and the grape, and
bring him off on his shoulders, and yet he owed him nothing;
while I, who owe so much to Thenardier, I cannot reach him
in that darkness in which he is suffering, and restore him, in
my turn, from death to life. Oh! I will find him! " Indeed,
to find Thenardier, Marius would have given _ one of his arms,
and to save him from his wretchedness, all his blood. To see
Thenardier, to render some service to Thenardier, to say to him

" You do not know me, but I do know you. Here I am,

dispose of me! " This was the sweetest and most magnificent
dream of Marius*

654 Les Miserables

III

MARIUS A MAN

MARIUS was now twenty years old. It was three years since he
had left his grandfather. They remained on the same terms
on both sides, without attempting a reconciliation, and without
seeking to meet. And, indeed, what was the use of meeting?
to come in conflict? Which would have had the best of it?
Marius was a vase of brass, but M. Gillenormand was an iron pot.

To tell the truth, Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's
heart. He imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him,
and that this crusty and harsh yet smiling old man, who swore,
screamed, stormed, and lifted his cane, felt for him at most only
the affection, at once slight and severe, of the old men of comedy.
Marius was deceived. There are fathers who do not love their
children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grand-
son. In reality, we have said, M. Gillenormand worshipped
Marius. He worshipped him in his own way, with an accom-
paniment of cuffs, and even of blows; but, when the child was
gone, he felt a dark void in his heart; he ordered that nobody
should speak of him again, and regretted that he was so well
obeyed. At first he hoped that this Buonapartist, this Jacobin,
this terrorist, this Septembrist, would return. But weeks passed
away, months passed away, years passed away; to the great
despair of M. Gilienormand, the blood-drinker did not reappear !
" But I could not do anything else than turn him away," said
the grandfather, and he asked himself: " If it were to be done
again, would I do it? " His pride promptly answered Yes,
but his old head, which he shook in silence, sadly answered,
No. He had his hours of dejection. He missed Marius. Old
men need affection as they do sunshine. It is warmth. How-
ever strong his nature might be, the absence of Marius had
changed something in him. For nothing in the world would he
have taken a step towards the " little rogue; " but he suffered.
He never inquired after him, but he thought of him constantly.
He lived, more and more retired, in the Marais. He was still,
as formerly, gay and violent, but his gaiety had a convulsive
harshness as if it contained grief and anger, and his bursts of
violence always terminated by a sort of placid and gloomy
exhaustion. He said sometimes: " Oh ! if he would come back,
what a good box of the ear I would give him."

As for the aunt, she thought too little to love very much|

Marius 655

Marius was now nothing to her but a sort of dim, dark outline;
and she finally busied herself a good deal less about him than
with the cat or the paroquet which she probably had. What
increased the secret suffering of Grandfather Gillenormand, was
that he shut her entirely out, and let her suspect nothing of it.
His chagrin was like those newly invented furnaces which
consume their own smoke. Sometimes it happened that some
blundering, officious body would speak to him of Marius, and
ask: " What is your grandson doing, or what has become of
him ? " The old bourgeois would answer, with a sigh, if he was
too sad, or giving his ruffle a tap, if he wished to seem gay:
" Monsieur the Baron Pontmercy is pettifogging in some hole."

While the old man was regretting, Marius was rejoicing. As
with all good hearts, suffering had taken away his bitterness.
He thought of M. Gillenormand only with kindness, but he had
determined to receive nothing more from the man who had been
cruel to his father. This was now the softened translation of his
first indignation. Moreover, he was happy in having suffered,
and in suffering still. It was for his father. His hard life
satisfied him, and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort
of pleasure that — :'/ was the very least ; that it was — an expiation ;
that — save for this, he would have been punished otherwise and
later, for his unnatural indifference towards his father, and
towards such a father; — that it would not have been just that
his father should have had all the suffering, and himself none;
— what were his efforts and his privation, moreover, compared
with the heroic life of the colonel? that finally his only way of
drawing near his father, and becoming like him, was to be valiant
against indigence as he had been brave against the enemy;
and that this was doubtless what the colonel meant by the
words: " He will be worthy of it." Words which Marius con-
tinued to bear, not upon his breast, the colonel's paper having
disappeared, but in his heart.

And then, when his grandfather drove him away, he was but
a child ; now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, we must insist,
had been good to him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds,
is so far magnificent that it turns the whole will towards effort,
and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty strips the
material life entirely bare, and makes it hideous; thence arise
inexpressible yearnings towards the ideal life. The rich young
man has a hundred brilliant and coarse amusements, racing,
hunting, dogs, cigars, gaming, feasting, and the rest; busying
the lower portions of the soul at the expense of its higher and

656

Les Miserables

delicate portions. The poor young man must work for his
bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing more but
reverie. He goes free to the play which God gives; he beholds
the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity
in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks
at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation
so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great;
he dreams again, and he feels that he is tender. From the
egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the
contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within
him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the
numberless enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and gives
lavishly to open souls, and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire
of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money.
All hatred goes out of his heart in proportion as all light enters
his mind. And then is he unhappy? No. The misery of
a young man is never miserable. The first lad you meet, poor
as he may be, with his health, his strength, his quick step, his
shining eyes, his blood which circulates warmly, his black locks,
his fresh cheeks, his rosy lips, his white teeth, his pure breath,
will always be envied by an old emperor. And then every morn-
ing he sets about earning his bread; and while his hands are
earning his living, his backbone is gaining firmness, his brain
is gaining ideas. When his work is done, he returns to ineffable
ecstasies, to contemplation, to joy ; he sees his feet in difficulties,
in obstacles, on the pavement, in thorns, sometimes in the mire;
his head is in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle, peaceful,
attentive, serious, content with little, benevolent; and he
blesses God for having given him these two estates which many
of the rich are without; labour which makes him free, and
thought which makes him noble.

This is what had taken place in Marius. He had even, to tell
the truth, gone a little too far on the side of contemplation. The
day on which he had arrived at the point of being almost sure
of earning his living, he stopped there, preferring to be poor, and
retrenching from labour to give to thought. That is to say, he
passed sometimes whole days in thinking, plunged and swallowed
up like a visionary, in the mute joys of ecstasy and interior
radiance. He had put the problem of his life thus: to work
as little as possible at material labour, that he might work as
much as possible at impalpable labour; in other words, to give
a few hours to real life, and to cast the rest into the infinite*
He did not perceive, thinking that he lacked nothing, that

Marius 657

contemplation thus obtained comes to be one of the forms of
sloth, that he was content with subduing the primary necessities
of life, and that he was resting too soon.

It was clear that, for his energetic and generous nature, this
could only be a transitory state, and that at the first shock
against the inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would
arouse.

Meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever Grand-
father Gillenormand might think, he was not pleading, he was
not even pettifogging. Reverie had turned him away from the
law. To consort with attorneys, to attend courts, to hunt up
cases, was wearisome. Why should he do it ? He saw no reason
for changing his business. This cheap and obscure book-making
had procured him sure work, work with little labour, which, as
we have explained, was sufficient for him.

One of the booksellers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I
think, had offered to take him home, give him a good room,
furnish him regular work, and pay him fifteen hundred francs
a year. To have a good room ! fifteen hundred francs ! Very
well. But to give up his liberty ! to work for a salary, to be a
kind of literary clerk ! In Marius' opinion, to accept, would
make his position better and worse at the same time; he would
gain in comfort and lose in dignity; it was a complete and beauti-
ful misfortune given up for an ugly and ridiculous constraint;
something like a blind man who should gain one eye. He
refused.

Marius' life was solitary. From his taste for remaining
outside of everything, and also from having been startled by
its excesses, he had decided not to enter the group presided over
by Enjolras. They had remained good friends ; they were ready
to help one another, if need were, in all possible ways; but
nothing more. Marius had two friends, one young, Courfeyrac,
and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined towards the old one.
First he was indebted to him for the revolution through which
he had gone ; he was indebted to him for having known and loved
his father. " He operated upon me for the cataract," said he.

Certainly, this churchwarden had been decisive.

M. Mabeuf was not, however, on that occasion anything more
than the calm and passive agent of providence. He had en-
lightened Marius accidentally and without knowing it, as a candle
does which somebody carries; he had been the candle and not
the somebody.

As to the interior political revolution in Marius, M. Matauf

658 Les Miserables

was entirely incapable of comprehending it, desiring it, or
directing it.

As we shall meet M. Mabeuf hereafter, a few words will not
be useless.

M. MABEUF

THE day that M. Mabeuf said to Marius: " Certainly, I approve
oj political opinions" he expressed the real condition of his
mind. All political opinions were indifferent to him, and he
approved them all without distinction, provided they left him
quiet, as the Greeks called the Furies, " the beautiful, the good,
the charming," the Eumenides. M. Mabeuf's political opinion
was a passionate fondness for plants, and a still greater one
for books. He had, like everybody else, his termination in ist,
without which nobody could have lived in those times, but he
was neither a royalist, nor a Bonapartist, nor a chartist, nor an
Orleanist, nor an anarchist; he was an old-bookist.

He did not understand how men could busy themselves with
hating one another about such bubbles as the charter, democ-
racy, legitimacy, the monarchy, the republic, etc., when there
were in this world all sorts of mosses, herbs and shrubs, which
they could look at, and piles of folios and even of 3211105 which
they could pore over. He took good care not to be useless;
having books did not prevent him from reading, being a botanist
did not prevent him from being a gardener. When he knew
Pontraercy, there was this sympathy between the colonel and
himself, that what the colonel did for flowers, he did for fruits.
M. Mabeuf had succeeded in producing seedling pears as highly
flavoured as the pears of Saint Germain: to one of his com-
binations, as it appears, we owe the October Mirabelle, now
famous, and not less fragrant than the Summer Mirabelle. He
went to mass rather from good-feeling than from devotion,
and because he loved the faces of men, but hated their noise,
and he found them, at church only, gathered together and
silent. Feeling that he ought to be something in the govern-
ment, he had chosen the career of a churchwarden. Finally,
he had never succeeded in loving any woman as much as a tulip
bulb, or any man as much as an Elzevir. He had long passed
his sixtieth year, when one day somebody asked him: " Were
you never married ? " "I forget," said he. When he happened

Marius 659

sometimes — to whom does it not happen ? — to say : " Oh ! if
I were rich," it was not upon ogling a pretty girl, like M. Gille-
normand, but upon seeing an old book. He lived alone, with
an old governess. He was a little gouty, and when he slept,
his old ringers, stiffened with rheumatism, were clenched in the
folds of the clothes. He had written and published a Flora of
the Environs of Cauteretz with coloured illustrations, a highly
esteemed work, the plates of which he owned and which he sold
himself. People came two or three times a day and rang his
bell, in the Rue Mfoieres, for it. He received fully two thousand
francs a year for it; this was nearly all his income. Though
poor, he had succeeded in gathering together, by means of
patience, self-denial, and time, a valuable collection of rare
copies on every subject. He never went out without a book
under his arm, and he often came back with two. The only
decoration of the four ground-floor rooms which, with a small
garden, formed his dwelling, were some framed herbariums and
a few engravings of old masters. The sight of a sword or a
gun chilled him. In his whole life, he had never been near
a cannon, even at the Invalides. He had a passable stomach.
a brother who was a cure, hair entirely white, no teeth left
either in his mouth or in his mind, a tremor of the whole body,
a Picard accent, a childlike laugh, weak nerves, and the appear-
ance of an old sheep. With all that, no other friend nor any
other intimate acquaintance among the living, but an old Book-
seller of the Porte Saint Jacques named Royol. His mania was
the naturalisation of indigo in France.

His servant was, also, a peculiar variety of innocence. The
poor, good old woman was a maid. Sultan, her cat, who could
have miauled the miserere of Allegri at the Sistine Chapel,
had filled her heart, and sufficed for the amount of passion which
she possessed. None of her dreams went as far as man. She
had never got beyond her cat She had, like him, moustaches.
Her glory was in the wiiiteness of her caps. She spent her time
on Sunday after mass in counting her linen in her trunk, and
in spreading out upon her bed the dresses in the piece which she
had bought and never made up. She could read. Monsieur
Mabeuf had given her the name of Mother Plutarch.

Monsieur Mabeuf took Marius into favour, because Marius,
being young and gentle, warmed his old age without arousing
his timidity. Youth, with gentleness, has upon old men the
effect of sunshine without wind. When Marius was full of
military glory, gunpowder, marches, and countermarches, and

660 Lcs Miscrables

all those wonderful battles in which his father had given and
received such huge sabre strokes, he went to see Monsieur
Mabeuf, and Monsieur Mabeuf talked with him about the hero
from the floricultural point of view.

Towards 1830, his brother the cur 6 died, and almost immedi-
ately after, as at the coming on of night, the whole horizon of
Monsieur Mabeuf was darkened. By a failure — of a notary —
he lost ten thousand francs, which was all the money that he
possessed in his brother's name and his own. The revolution
of July brought on a crisis in bookselling. In hard times, the
first thing that does not sell is a Flora. The Flora of the
Environs of Cauteretz stopped short. Weeks went by without
a purchaser. Sometimes Monsieur Mabeuf would start at the
sound of the bell. " Monsieur," Mother Plutarch would say
sadly, " it is the water-porter." In short, Monsieur Mabeuf
left the Rue M6zieres one day, resigned his place as church-
warden, gave up Saint Sulpice, sold a part, not of his books,
but of his prints — what he prized the least — and installed
himself in a little house on the Boulevard Montparnasse, where
however he remained but one quarter, for two reasons; first,
the ground floor and the garden let for three hundred francs,
and he did not dare to spend more than two hundred francs
for his rent; secondly, being near the Fatou shooting gallery,
he heard pistol shots; which was insupportable to him.

He carried off his Flora, his plates, his herbariums, his port-
folios and his books, and established himself near La Salpetriere
in a sort of cottage in the village of Austerlitz, where at fifty
crowns a year he had three rooms, a garden inclosed with a
hedge, and a well. He took advantage of this change to sell
nearly all his furniture. The day of his entrance into this new
dwelling, he was very gay, and drove the nails himself on which
to hang the engravings and the herbariums; he dug in his
garden the rest of the day, and in the evening, seeing that
Mother Plutarch had a gloomy and thoughtful air, he tapped
her on the shoulder and said with a smile: " We have the
indigo."

Only two visitors, the bookseller of the Porte Saint Jacques
and Marius, were admitted to his cottage at Austerlitz, a
tumultuous name which was, to tell the truth, rather disagree-
able to him.

However, as we have just indicated, brains absorbed in wisdom,
or in folly, or, as often happens, in both at once, are but very
slowly permeable by the affairs of life. Their own destiny is

Marius 66 1

far from them. There results from such concentrations ol
mind a passivity which, if it were due to reason, would resemble
philosophy. We decline, we descend, we fall, we are even
overthrown, and we hardly perceive it. This always ends, it is
true, by an awakening, but a tardy one. In the meantime, it
seems as though we were neutral in the game which is being
played between our good and our ill fortune. We are the stake,
yet we look upon the contest with indifference.

Thus it was that amid this darkness which was gathering
about him, all his hopes going out one after another, Monsieur
Mabeuf had remained serene, somewhat childishly, but very
thoroughly. His habits of mind had the swing of a pendulum.
Once wound up by an illusion, he went a very long time, even
when the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not stop at
the very moment you lose the key.

Monsieur Mabeuf had some innocent pleasures. These
pleasures were cheap and unlooked-for; the least chance
furnished them. One day Mother Plutarch was reading a
romance in one corner of the room. She read aloud, as she
understood better so. To read aloud, is to assure yourself of
what you are reading. There are people who read very loud,
and who appear to be giving their words of honour for what
they are reading.

It was with that kind of energy that Mother Plutarch was
reading the romance she held in her hand. Monsieur Mabeuf
heard, but was not listening.

As she read, Mother Plutarch came to this passage. It was
about an officer of dragoons and a belle:

" The belle bouda [pouted], and the dragon [dragoon] — "

Here she stopped to wipe her spectacles.

" Bouddha and the Dragon," said Monsieur Mabeuf in an
undertone. " Yes, it is true, there was a dragon who, from the
depth of his cave, belched forth flames from his jaws and was
burning up the sky. Several stars had already been set on fire
by this monster, who, besides, had claws like a tiger. Bouddha
went into his cave and succeeded in converting the dragon.
That is a good book which you are reading there, Mother
Plutarch. There is no more beautiful legend."

And Monsieur Mabeuf fell into a delicious reverie.

662 Les Miserables

POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOUR OF MISERY

MARIUS had a liking for this open-hearted old man, who saw
that he was being slowly seized by indigence, and who had come
gradually to be astonished at it, without, however, as yet
becoming sad. Marius met Courfeyrac, and went to see Monsieur
Mabeuf. Very rarely, however ; once or twice a month, at most.

It was Marius' delight to take long walks alone on the outer
boulevards, or in the Champ de Mars, or in the less frequented
walks of the Luxembourg. He sometimes spent half a day
in looking at a vegetable garden, at the beds of salad, the fowls
on the dung-heap, and the horse turning the wheel of the pump.
The passers-by looked at him with surprise, and some thought
that he had a suspicious appearance and an ill-omened manner.
He was only a poor young man, dreaming without an object.

It was in one of these walks that he had discovered the
Gorbeau tenement, and its isolation and cheapness being an
attraction to him, he had taken a room in it. He was only
known in it by the name of Monsieur Marius.

All passions, except those of the heart, are dissipated by
reverie. Marius' political fevers were over. The revolution
of 1830, by satisfying him, and soothing him, had aided in this.
He remained the same, with the exception of his passionateness.
He had still the same opinions. But they were softened.
Properly speaking, he held opinions no longer; he had sym-
pathies. Of what party was he? of the party of humanity.
Out of humanity he chose France; out of the nation he chose
the people; out of the people he chose woman. To her, above
all, his pity went out. He now preferred an idea to a fact, a
poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job still more than
an event like Marengo. And then, when, after a day of medita-
tion, he returned at night along the boulevards, and saw through
the branches of the trees the fathomless space, the nameless
lights, the depths, the darkness, the mystery, all that which
is only human seemed to him very pretty.

Marius thought he had, and he had perhaps in fact, arrived at
the truth of life and of human philosophy, and he had finally
come hardly to look at anything but the sky, the only thing
that truth can see from the bottom of her well.

This did not hinder him from multiplying plans, combinations,

Marius 663

scaffoldings, projects for the future. In this condition of reverie,
an eye which could have looked into Marius' soul would have
been dazzled by its purity. In fact, were it given to our eye
of flesh to see into the consciences of others, we should judge
a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what
he thinks. There is will in the thought, there is none in the
dream. The dream, which is completely spontaneous, takes
and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our
mind. Nothing springs more directly and more sincerely from
the very bottom of our souls than our unreflected and indefinite
aspirations towards the splendours of destiny. In these aspira-
tions, much more than in ideas which are combined, studied,
and compared, we can find the true character of each man.
Our chimaeras are what most resemble ourselves. Each one
dreams the unknown and the impossible according to his own
nature.

Towards the middle of this year, 1831, the old woman who
waited upon Marius told him that his neighbours, the wretched
Jondrette family, were to be turned into the street. Marius,
who passed almost all his days out of doors, hardly knew that
he had any neighbours.

" Why are they turned out? " said he.

" Because they do not pay their rent; they owe for two
terms."

"How much is that?"

" Twenty francs," said the old woman.

Marius had thirty francs in reserve in a drawer.

" Here," said he, to the old woman, " there are twenty-five
francs. Pay for these poor people, give them five francs, and
do not tell them that it is from me."

THE SUPPLANTER

IT happened that the regiment to which Lieutenant The'odule
belonged came to be stationed at Paris. This was the occasion
of a second idea occurring to Aunt Gillenormand. She had, the
first time, thought she would have Marius watched by Theodule;
»he plotted to have The'odule supplant Marius.

At all events, and in case the grandfather should feel a vague
need of a young face in the house — these rays of dawn are some-
times grateful to ruins — it was expedient to find another Marius.

664

Les Miserables

" Yes/' thought she, " it is merely an erratum such as I see
in the books; for Marius read Thdodule."

A grandnephew is almost a grandson; for want of a lawyer,
a lancer will do.

One morning, as Monsieur Gillenormand was reading some-
thing like La Quotidienne, his daughter entered, and said in her
softest voice, for the matter concerned her favourite :

" Father, Theodule is coming this morning to present his
respects to you."

" Who is that,— Theodule? "

" Your grandnephew."

" Ah! " said the grandfather.

Then he resumed his reading, thought no more of the grand-
nephew who was nothing more than any Theodule, and very
soon was greatly excited, as was almost always the case when
he read. The " sheet " which he had, royalist indeed — that
was a matter of course, — announced for the next day, without
any mollification, one of the little daily occurrences of the Paris
of that time ; that the students of the schools of Law and Medicine
would meet in the square of the Pantheon at noon — to deliberate.
The question was one of the topics of the moment : the artillery
of the National Guard, and a conflict between the Minister of
War and " the citizen militia " on the subject of the cannon
planted in the court of the Louvre. The students were to
" deliberate " thereupon. It did not require much more to
enrage Monsieur Gillenormand.

He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who, probably,
would go, like the others, " to deliberate, at noon, in the square
of the Pantheon."

While he was dwelling upon this painful thought, Lieutenant
Theodule entered, in citizen's dress, which was adroit, and
was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The
lancer reasoned thus : " The old druid has not put everything
into an annuity. It is well worth while to disguise oneself in
taffeta occasionally."

Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:

" Theodule, your grandnephew/'

And, in a whisper, to the lieutenant:

" Say yes to everything."

And she retired.

The lieutenant, little accustomed to such venerable encounters,
stammered out with some timidity: " Good morning, uncle,"
and made a mixed bow composed of the involuntary and

Marius 665

mechanical awkwardness of the military salute finished ofl
with the bow of the bourgeois.

" Ah I it is you; very well, take a seat," said the old man.
And then, he entirely forgot the lancer.
Theodule sat down, and Monsieur Gillenormand got up.
Monsieur Gillenormand began to walk up and down with his
hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and rubbing with his
nervous old fingers the two watches which he carried in his
two waistcoat pockets.

" This mess of snivellers 1 they meet together in the Square
of the Pantheon. Virtue of my quean ! Scapegraces yesterday
at nurse! If their noses were squeezed, the milk would run
outl And they deliberate at noon to-morrow! What are we
coming to ? what are we coming to ? It is clear that we are
going to the pit. That is where the descamisados have led us !
The citizen artillery t To deliberate about the citizen artillery !
To go out and jaw in the open air about the blowing of the
National Guard! And whom will they find themselves with
there ! Just see where jacobinism leads to. I will bet anything
you please, a million against a fig, that they will all be fugitives
from justice and discharged convicts. Republicans and galley-
slaves, they fit like a nose and a handkerchief. Carnot said:
' Where would you have me go, traitor? ' Fouche" answered:
' Wherever you like, fool 1 ' That is what republicans are."
" It is true," said Theodule.

Monsieur Gillenormand turned bis head half around, saw
Theodule, and continued:

" Only to think that this rogue has been so wicked as to turn
carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go out and be
a republican. Pish ! in the first place the people do not want
your republic, they do not want it, they have good sense, they
know very well that there always have been kings, and that there
always will be, they know very well that the people, after all, is
nothing but the people, they laugh at your republic do you
understand, idiot? Is not that caprice of yours horrible? lo
fall in love with P£re Duchesne, to cast sheep's eyes at the
guillotine, to sing ditties and play the guitar under the balcony
of '93; we must spit upon all these young folks, they are so
stupid! They are all in a heap. Not one is out of it. It is
enough to breathe the air that blows down the street to make
therrT crazy. The nineteenth century is poison. The first
blackguard you will meet wears his goat's beard, thinks he :
very clever, and discards his old relatives. That is republican,

666 Les Miserables

that is romantic. What is that indeed, romantic? have the
kindness to tell me what that is! Every possible folly
year ago. you went to Hernani. I want to know, Herman
antitheses 1 abominations which are not written in 1
And then they have cannon in the court of the Louvre,
is the brigandage of these things."

" You are right, uncle," said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand resumed:

" Cannon in the court of the Museum! what for?
what do you want? Do you want to shoot down the
Belvedere? What have cartridges to do with Venus
Medici? Oh! these young folks nowadays, all scamps !
a small affair is their Benjamin Constant! And those who ;
not scoundrels are boobies! They do all they can to 1
they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, they appej
like beggars about petticoats, which makes the wenches
out laughing; upon my word, you would say the poor f<
are ashamed of love. They are homely, and they finish th<
selves off by being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercel
Potier, they have sackcoats, horse-jockeys' waistcoats, c
cotton shirts, coarse cloth trousers, coarse leather I
their jabber is like their feathers. Their jargon would s
sole their old shoes with. And all these foolish brats
political opinions. They ought to be strictly forbidden to hav
any political opinions. They fabricate systems, they i
society, they demolish monarchy, they upset all laws they pu
the garret into the cellar, and my porter m place of 1
they turn Europe topsy-turvy, they rebuild the world
favours they get are sly peeps at washerwomen's legs when tl
are getting into their carts! Oh! Mariusl Oh! you begga
going to bawl in a public place! to discuss, to debate, t<
measures! they call them measures, just gods ! disorder si
and becomes a ninny. I have seen chaos, I see i
Scholars deliberating about the National Guard you wot
see that among the Ojibways or among the Cadodach*
savages who go naked, their pates looking like shuttlecocks,
with clubs in their paws, are not so wild as these bachek
Fourpenny monkeys! they pass for learned and capable! t
deliberate and reason! it is the world's end. It is evident
the end of this miserable terraqueous globe. It needed
final hiccough, France is giving it. Deliberate, y«*
Such things will happen as long as they go and read the papei
under the arches of the Odeon. That costs them a sou, and

was

«i
.;

the
but

the<

Marius 667

their good sense, and their intelligence, and their heart, and
their soul, and their mind. They come away from there, and
they bring the camp into their family. All these journals are
a pest; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! at bottom Martainville
was a jacobin. Oh ! just heavens ! you can be proud of having

fown your grandfather into despair, you can!
1 That is evident," said Theodule.
Vnd taking advantage of M. Gillenormand's drawing breath
the lancer added magisterially: « There ought to be no journal
but the Moniieur and no book but the Annuaire Mihtaire.
M. Gillenormand went on.

" He is like their Sieyes! a regicide ending off as a senator;
that is always the way they end. They slash themselves with
thee-and-thouing, and citizen, so that they may come to be
called Monsieur the Count, Monsieur the Count as big as my
arm the butchers of September. The philosopher Siey£s!
am happy to say that I never made any more account of the
philosophies of all these philosophers than of the spectacles of
the clown of Tivoli. I saw the senators one day passing along
the Quai Malaquais in mantles of violet velvet sprinkled with
bees, and hats in the style of Henri IV. They were hideous
You would have said they were the monkeys of the tigers court.
Citizens, I tell you that your progress is a lunacy, that yoi
humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that yot
republic is a monster, that your young maiden France come<
from the brothel, and I maintain it before you all, whoever you
are be vou publicists, be you economists, be you legists, be
you greater connoisseurs in liberty, equality, and fraternity
than the axe of the guillotine ! I tell you that, ^ goodmen »
" Zounds," cried the lieutenant, that is wonderfully tn
M Gillemormand broke off a gesture which he had begun
turned looked the lancer Theodule steadily in the eyes, and

said :

" You are a fool."

THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH

University of California

SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

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